Performance
by Lady Otori
Summary: He's about to become Hokage, and she's just trying to make sure everyone gets along. But nothing ever goes smoothly for Kakashi or Sakura, and a precarious final mission as an undercover performance troupe isn't going to make things any easier. A mission that spells the end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. [KakaSaku, Team Kakashi friendship]
1. The Briefing

When Kakashi opened the door to Tsunade's office and saw the lineup for the briefing, he knew that this was The Mission. It had been coming for some time, if the Godaime's subtle reshuffling of responsibilities and not-so-subtle invitations to visit the Hokage's private tailor were any indication. That, along with her sudden refusal to assign him anything more than B-class tracking missions, as though he were somehow suddenly _too important_ to let loose in the field for anything more than exercise, set the wheels spinning in his analytical mind. She hadn't even had the decency to ask outright.

He huffed through his mask, one eye closed in a habit he just couldn't break, and stepped up to where the rest of Team Kakashi waited in front of the Hokage's desk. Tsunade arched a blonde eyebrow at his tardiness, while he couldn't keep the other eye from sliding closed in what amounted to a smile as Naruto and Sakura chorused:

"You're late!"

"I see you've decided to grace us with your presence, Hatake," Tsunade said mirthlessly, and he didn't need to be a mind reader to know she was daring him to find ways to be late when he was sitting on her side of the desk.

"What happened this time?" Asked Sai from his position to Kakashi's left - and gods, was that _Sasuke?_ Tsunade really had pulled out all the stops - where he stood next to Tenzou. A six-man cell was unusual for anything less than a search and destroy operation, and to pull together such a large contingent of the village's top shinobi was bordering on the irresponsible. Of course, that only confirmed his suspicions that this was it. His final foray into the fray before Tsunade passed on the Will of Fire - and all its accompanying paperwork - and his face was carved into the Hokage monument alongside his teacher's.

"Kakashi-senpai?" Sai prompted, the only one of them who still enjoyed hearing his excuses. He'd once remarked to Tenzou when he thought the silver haired jounin was out of earshot that Kakashi's never-ending tall tales made great sketching material.

"Hn?" The older ninja replied, levelling his dark gaze at the ANBU agent, who looked as though he was ready to reach for the sketchbook at any moment. Too bad his imagination wasn't feeling too active. "Oh, well…" Kakashi glanced to his right, where Naruto and Sakura wore matching expressions of practiced indifference. "I just wanted to keep my favourite team mates waiting."

Naruto was getting better at not reacting to his nonsense, so all that happened was that the young blonde's nose twitched perceptibly while he met Kakashi's gaze, before sliding his blue eyes back to the front. Still, there was a hint of a grin around his features. They'd been on two missions recently where Kakashi had actually been _on time_ from sheer boredom, so this was about as much of a reaction as he'd been expecting.

Sai frowned. "But…"

"...you didn't know we'd be on your team," Sakura finished for the artist, who nodded in agreement. Kakashi turned towards the medic, not missing the slowly emerging smirk on Sasuke's normally blank countenance as he faced away from the younger man. Since he'd been released from the reintegration unit some three years ago, the Uchiha remained almost as emotionless as Sai could be; except for when his original teammates bantered and bickered with one another. And as a good team leader, wasn't it imperative that Kakashi make sure the team dynamic was as amiable as it could be?

"But Sakura-chan, you're _always_ on my team," he said to her in his best imitation of the kunoichi's infamous pout. He watched as her eyes flickered to him first, then Sasuke, then back to the front with an impressive lack of a grin. She knew what he was about, but wouldn't give in in front of her shishou.

He wasn't lying; Kakashi and Sakura were paired up together regularly, something else which he suspected had been leading up to The Mission. Like himself, Sakura was considered something approaching indispensable to the village. And also like himself, she was prone to acting out if the days between fieldwork stretched too long. Tsunade had really outdone herself with their continuous partnership of the last six months - keep her apprentice out of trouble while making sure her successor didn't stray too far from the missive. It wasn't much of a secret that the only people who had any hope of reigning Kakashi in were currently standing in the office.

"Are you quite finished?" The Hokage interrupted, fingers beginning to drum dangerously against the hardwood of her desk. Kakashi wondered if she'd take it with her when she left. Sakura snapped to attention with a hastily murmured "of course, shishou" before gracing him with a narrowing of her bright green eyes. That was something that hadn't changed about the kunoichi even as she approached her 23rd year: her utter devotion to Tsunade, and her utter inability to avoid living up to her reputation as a teacher's pet. An endless source of amusement to the silver haired jounin and to a lesser extent, the rest of her team, Kakashi let it slide today on account of the way Tsunade was attempting to see through him with the intensity of her glare.

Sighing, the put-upon Hokage began to outline the particulars of the mission to the waiting shinobi. Part infiltration attempt and part scouting expedition, they were to travel undercover to a remote outpost on the border of Fire and Wind, where one of the daimyo's retainers who oversaw his rich date and vine crops was suspected of siphoning off a significant portion of, if not the profits, the produce itself. It was a delicate matter and not one suited to the daimyo's own contingent of samurai; turning out in a show of force would only anger the retainer if he was innocent, and would _certainly_ rile some of the wilder Wind country lordlings due to the estate's proximity to the border. Although they generally didn't interfere in one another's affairs, the daimyo had sent his head of household to personally request that Konoha look into the situation with explicit promises of S-rank payment and an offer to assist with the next stage in the village's expansion project.

While the latter offer would be tacitly rejected - Kakashi knew as well as the next high-ranking ninja that the Hidden Villages saw to their own construction with fierce secrecy - it _did_ open the doors for Tsunade to extract an equally valuable favour from the head of state. Plus, if their cover was blown, the daimyo could reasonably protest innocence and throw up his hands at the oft-mysterious workings of the ninja within his borders.

Kakashi was impressed; it looked like The Mission was actually an expedition up to his calibre, and if he didn't know better may even suspect Tsunade of orchestrating the situation herself. While the slug princess wasn't as shrewd an operator as her predecessor the Third, her years of gambling had given her a deft touch when it came to matters of negotiation and persuasion.

The team managed to listen to the main outline in silence, but barely a second had passed before Naruto blurted out, "so what's the cover?" He was getting better at following orders, at staying quiet and most importantly at _behaving himself_ , but Kakashi supposed some parts of a personality were just too deeply ingrained to surpass. It didn't help that everyone else in the room - except Tenzou and himself - looked equally interested in the answer. It was likely up to them to sort it out amongst themselves, though Kakashi wasn't particularly relishing another mission where he had to pretend the younger ninja were related to him in some way. He'd nearly blown their cover a few times when _his siblings_ were mistaken for _his children_ and his winces were too noticeable to ignore. Silver hair wasn't just the province of the elderly, a fact which he would adamantly maintain through hurried hand movements and a general display of his "youthfulness" that would make Gai amused. Those moments always made him feel aged beyond his years, in a grumpy sort of fashion, and Kakashi would rather not spend his last field expedition for gods know how long in a bad mood.

"For this mission," Tsunade continued as though the blonde ninja hadn't interrupted, "you'll be posing as a group of travelling performers. We've got intel from the daimyo and a few of his contacts that Lord Ichidate is a connoisseur of the performing arts, and it's likely that this position will gain you access to his person faster than any alternatives, as well as allowing for the easiest extraction once you've resolved the issues the daimyo has raised. I've put together some suggestions on your composition, but I'll leave the particulars to sort out amongst yourselves."

She held out a neatly wrapped scroll towards Kakashi, who noted that it bore the neat handwriting of Shizune rather than Tsunade's own doctor's scrawl. Of course she wouldn't have compiled something like this herself, not when her assistant had the (un)fortunate position of being counted on to know as much as possible about her workforce. Smoothly ignoring the four pairs of curious eyes that followed the scroll's movement, he tucked it inside his flak jacket and wondered what insights it held about him.

"Of course," Tsunade continued, "you'll have to be careful with displaying any skills that could easily be associated with the shinobi discipline. That means," she pointed a finger at Naruto, "no shadow clones, and," here she motioned to Sasuke, to everyone's surprise, "no sword dancing." As both young men gave her their signature dirty looks, the Hokage blithely ignored them and noted that Tenzou's particular brand of jutsu was so exceedingly rare that she deemed it safe for him to incorporate into his performance skills.

"Now," the Hokage clapped her hands together in the decisive manner that had started a thousand missions, "I want you to leave at first light, so go and get your things together. The shops in the civilian market may have the equipment you need if you can't find it within the headquarters."

Naruto was still eyeing Sasuke while even Tenzou and Sai looked intrigued at the Hokage's chiding - sword dancing, really? - but Kakashi noticed the way Sakura ignored the revelation at the same time as Tsunade held up a hand for him to stay, forcing him to stop as the others filed from the room. Pausing with her hand on the door, Sakura raised pink eyebrows at Kakashi, seeing him still standing in front of the Hokage's desk with his hands jammed firmly in his pockets and his feet pointed to the window. He knew she knew it was his I-want-to-escape-but-can't pose, and she just scrunched up her nose at him in what she considered her professional smile and he considered her least cheeky one, saying, "I'll make sure we head for the teahouse," before sliding her hand from the door and closing it smoothly behind her.

As the door narrowed to a sliver, Kakashi noticed Naruto placing their pink haired teammate very deliberately on his left hand side while he slapped a palm onto Sasuke's shoulder, effectively keeping himself between the two young ninja.

"I see that partnership's been working out for you both," Tsunade observed at her apprentice's easy communication with him, lacing her fingers together underneath her chin while she motioned with her head for him to take a seat. Kakashi never sat down in the Hokage's office and he wasn't going to start until they _absolutely forced_ him to, so he settled for slouching even further until one hip was level with the older ninja's desk.

"I guess…" he replied noncommittally, still thinking about what he'd just witnessed, before heaving a sigh at Tsunade's rapidly angering gaze and clarifying, "Yes, it is nice to work with someone who understands you."

"Sakura's in a perfect position to be a Hokage's advisor..." the older ninja said suggestively, "although she's very much in demand in the hospital, of course." When Kakashi didn't give her much of a reaction Tsunade left off her teasing and became serious. "Now, I'm sure you understand what this is, right?"

This being the briefing still laid out on her desk, the daimyo's personal seal a rough reminder that even his last mission wasn't going to be an easy one.

"I do," he replied quietly. "After all, I was with Minato-sensei on _his_ 'Mission'." Hands pulled into quotes for emphasis, Kakashi lifted his dark eyes to meet her hazel ones. "Though I'd much prefer a twenty year gambling stint, you know."

Tsunade huffed out a laugh, opening a drawer and deftly procuring a bottle of her finest sake, placing two cups down on one of the few empty spots on the desk. If Shizune hadn't confiscated it then that meant the Hokage's loyal assistant knew what was up, which likely meant that Genma knew, which meant that unless he paid his jounin friends a visit very very soon then the whole village would know of his imminent forcing into the limelight.

She emptied her first cup as quickly as Kakashi could say kanpai, refilling his until he had to hold a wary hand over it.

"It's a nice tradition," Tsunade continued. "It's one I intend to keep, because there's not much else about being Hokage that could be considered _fun_ , you know? One big last mission with everyone you work best with, fantastic pay for you and your team, a dash of what you're good at - but no assassinations if you can help it, please - and the ability to pass up the mission report because you're busy being pampered and primped for your inauguration. I've even given you an extra week of leeway to stop in at one of Fire's best kept secrets on the way home." She pointed a slim finger towards the scroll in his flak jacket. "Shizune should have put the details in there, so make sure you don't let the rest of them mess the scroll up too much, because it's your invitation."

Kakashi stared at her, uncharacteristically surprised. He thought back to the Fourth's last mission before his inauguration - the hiding in ditches, the weeks spent cursing the weather and the Third and the enemies who evaded them at every turn - and couldn't help but think the world had changed in the almost thirty years in between. It would have made him feel old, if he wasn't looking into his leader's deeply wise eyes in her suspiciously ageless face. And he suspected that Naruto's Mission, when the time came to pass on the reins, might be as simple as a trip to hunt down the ingredients for his favourite restaurant's favourite dish.

"Thank you, Hokage-sama," he said, downing the sake through his mask. And even if he didn't want the job, didn't want what it meant for his more casual relationships and his changeless days of fighting and relaxing, he meant this thanks. There had been a time when he thought his last mission would end up with his lifeblood seeping into a ditch, and a death of his freedom was preferable to the final death of a shinobi.

Tsunade just smiled in that predatory way she'd perfected at the gambling tables. "Just don't go dying on me, Kakashi. I've no desire to start training up _another_ successor."

He heard her snickering even as he beat a hasty retreat.

* * *

It seemed Sakura had in fact successfully steered the team away from Ichiraku, because as Kakashi approached the teahouse he could hear her laughing in that way she reserved for Naruto, occupying a tone between loving and exasperated and with a healthy dose of indulgence for good measure. It sounded a little brashly loud for the kunoichi, but that was likely something to do with whatever had been bothering the pair at the meeting.

Pausing behind the hedge as he fixed the fit of his gloves - he'd taken them off during his silencing mission to Genma - Kakashi listened to them bantering back and forth for a moment, wondering, while he lifted the scroll from his pocket and reread the contents.

Genma had promised not to tell a soul about what has happening on the condition that he receive a sneak preview of the team's potential performing skills as compiled by Shizune, and they'd spent an enjoyable twenty minutes (post threat of course) imagining the elite ninja currently in the teahouse occupying their individual roles. They hadn't been surprised to discover that Sai's contribution to the cover was going to be largely artistic in nature, nor that Shizune considered Naruto's history as an energetic prankster the perfect asset to weave into a role as a hybrid tumbler / jester. Somewhat more surprising was her thoughts that Sasuke might perform well as a dancer and the hastily scribbled notes alluding to Tenzou's potential as an illusionist. There was a number of crossed out thoughts under Kakashi's own name - he had to suppress Genma's laugh at the suggestion of him as an animal tamer - but what piqued his curiosity was the lack of input as to Sakura's contribution to the operation.

Shizune knew her best out of them all, so for her to leave the space blank wasn't a suggestion that Sakura _had_ no skills to contribute, simply that she knew what the younger kunoichi would choose. Taking a moment to appreciate the lull in conversation that could only mean the arrival of the waitress with their food, the jounin dropped the jutsu masking his presence and moved with an echo of his sensei's speed to the unoccupied cushion at the head of the table.

"You're late," chorused his two former students in an echo of their earlier exclamation, but this time Sakura was already passing a heaped plate of food his way before the smoke had cleared from his entrance. They were in the Maple room of the teahouse, his favourite for two reasons: because it was the easiest to escape from if briefings got too boring, and because the red reliefs of the room's namesake lent the meetings a cosy air. Sakura, of course, must have guessed there was a reason he always asked for this room when they visited and had chosen it herself without knowing why, proving to the older shinobi again that their ability to predict the other's needs was becoming uncanny. Now if only he could read minds - an ability he didn't always covet from the Yamanaka clan but would be fiendishly helpful in the subtly tense situation he'd just teleported into.

"Tsunade kept me," he offered by way of explanation, accepting the plate with a grateful squeeze of his uncovered eyes.

"Kept you at the sake, it seems", sniffed Sasuke pointedly, his chin on his hand in a way that suggested he was beginning to lose patience with the situation. It was just enough like his twelve year old self to make Kakashi smile again, more genuinely this time; after a few years of being confronted with an eerily emotionless teammate these breakthroughs were to be stored up like jewels, treasured moments of familiarity to be held onto when the Uchiha's moods swung towards the darker end.

"I don't know what you mean," Kakashi answered Sasuke with his very best team leader voice, turning his attention to the tea set that occupied the centre of the table. Once again, he had barely reached for it when a cup of the steaming hot beverage appeared in front of his hands, held out by a Sakura who had barely paused in her playful arguing with Naruto over the virtues of green tea versus instant coffee. She wasn't looking in his direction, but the grip she had on the cup was bordering on calamitous, if the white of her knuckles was any indication.

Did she know? Kakashi couldn't think of another reason for her sudden solicitousness. Sakura was never cruel but she wasn't always overly kind either, reserving her coddling behaviour for their worst moments in the hospital or those rare days when she clung to one or another of her team and said barely two words, displaying her care for them in actions and gestures. She was chatting animatedly if nervously enough which ruled out the latter, and he wasn't in need of the hospital although the heavy weight sitting on his chest almost begged to differ. Well, if she wasn't going to spell it out then neither would he; _that_ particular uncomfortable talk about the end of their regular mission pairing was going to have to wait.

Sighing, the jounin waited until everyone was engaged before wolfing down the food in a few bites, content to let the voices of his closest team mates wash over him in the red haze of the tea room.

* * *

Sakura barely noticed when Kakashi puffed into existence across the table from her; her hands had been automatically gathering his favourite foods onto a plate since the waitress had emerged from behind the curtain, and when he appeared she simply completed the action by passing him the plate and continuing her easy (she hoped) conversation with Naruto.

Was it just her, or was the tension in the room almost visible? She personally felt the atmosphere was becoming so palpable that it hurt to open her mouth to speak, and by the way Naruto's voice was getting steadily louder and louder she knew he felt it too. What were they even talking about? Tea, coffee? At the thought she began to mechanically pour her team leader a drink, made just the way he liked it: a habit borne from years of giving in to his pleading looks as _she made tea just so nicely, Sakura-chan_. She was almost physically grateful for Sai and Tenzou's presence in the room, even though they were currently occupied in a discussion about the merits of plant-based inks and where to procure them. More people could only dilute the situation, could only help her to get through this meal until she and Naruto could get a moment to debrief.

If Sasuke's eyes bored into the back of her head any longer she was sure she was going to start screaming out loud.

Naruto must have felt her reaching breaking point - or perhaps he was too - because he abruptly broke off their conversation to practically yell into the comfortable quiet of the teahouse that it was high time Kakashi shared the contents of the scroll with the group. With a raised eyebrow that indicated he had some thoughts about Naruto yelling at him like that, Kakashi reached into the pocket of his jacket and unfurled the piece of paper unhurriedly.

He'd never admit it but Sakura knew he had a flare for the dramatic (something which leached into his elaborate excuses for his tardiness as much as his subtle encouragement of his reputation in the shinobi world) but right now she just wanted to wrench the paper from his hands, read it like she was giving an oration, then run at full tilt for her room. And this was the start of a mission spanning almost two months? It was enough to make her want to put her head in her hands.

Kakashi cleared his throat unnecessarily as everyone turned their full attention to him, with even Sasuke's curiosity overwhelming his current need to stare into Sakura's very soul to force him to look at his former teacher.

"As you know," Kakashi began, meeting each of their gazes in turn, "Tsunade-sama has requested we assume roles as a group of travelling performers. Shizune has put some thought into what roles we'd best fit, but I want us to discuss this in depth before we head into the field. Once we're out there, it will be _imperative_ that we adapt to what our positions will ask of us, so there is no point in taking on something you won't feel comfortable doing, 100% of the time."

His professionalism was reassuring to Sakura, cutting through her current anxieties about how she was going to survive the next 8 weeks. While Kakashi may be a lazy layabout with a penchant for poorly-concealed silliness, this vanished as soon as he entered the fray. She'd had plenty of opportunities over the last year in particular to observe his impressive ability to live up to his often exaggerated reputation as one of Konoha's finest, watching as he moved from reading his favourite dirty literature to saving her life and everyone else's in the vicinity with barely a flicker of hesitation. If only she could grab hold of this same attitude, then the upcoming mission might just make its way into her dossier without incident.

"We'll start with the obvious," her team leader continued, focusing his gaze onto Naruto, who had the decency to begin to look outraged at his predictability. "I've seen the way you train, and the way you attempt to sneak away from a prank, and I think you could harness both attitudes well when it comes to the art of tumbling. It's very similar to how you move, but you'll need to be careful not to rely on your chakra if it comes to taking a fall. Sakura-chan," he tilted his head in her direction without looking at her, "can heal you at the end of any performance gone wrong."

Naruto folded both arms together, jamming his hands under his armpits and fixing Kakashi with an almost-scowl. "And how do you know I'll be good at this flailing around?" He asked, a hint of an annoyed huff colouring his words.

"Because I know for a fact that Tsukune from Icha Icha Violence is based on your antics with Jiraiya," Kakashi answered smoothly, ignoring the way the blonde's teeth snapped shut with an audible click. "Yes, even _that scene_ \- so I know for a fact you spent a good two years running around impressing the locals with your comedic acrobatics."

"Eh? Y-yes, well, it's, ahh - awh c'mon Sakura-chan, don't fix me that look - I guess I could maybe do it if we need it." The rest of the team watched the young ninja's growing blush while he tried to sink downwards into the floor. Sakura suppressed a smirk; Icha Icha Violence didn't even have a character called Tsukune much less anything like a tumbler, so she guessed Kakashi was basing his assumption on some other knowledge of what Jiraiya had been likely to make a student of his do (maybe it'd been passed onto the Fourth, who'd inflicted it on Kakashi's team), a ploy which Naruto was falling for admirably.

But: she'd rather die than admit to Kakashi that she'd read his precious dirty books, and if she didn't react like they expected her to then that was as good as if she stood on the rooftop and shouted it for the village to hear. So she threw a glare in Naruto's direction while giving him a sharp pinch for good measure, just enough chakra behind it to make him yelp like a wounded animal. Sai laughed at the noise which roused Naruto enough to make him stand up and begin threatening bodily violence to the artist, which caused the perfect level of distraction for her to resume drinking her tea as though nothing had happened.

Naruto didn't even notice when a chakra-wreathed hand tapped lightly on his pinched arm, so used to her quickfire heals as he was, but if Kakashi's amused glance at her ministrations was any indication then Sakura was sure the silver haired jounin thought he knew exactly what she was up to. As long as he didn't piece together that she knew the contents of his books fairly well, then she didn't really care what he assumed she was doing.

"Moving on," Kakashi supplied when Tenzou had managed to shut Sai up and Naruto ran out of steam, "Sai, Shizune mentions your visits to the children's section of the hospital on entertainment day, as well as your recent work in producing inks that can be used directly on skin and manipulated with chakra. How has this been working out for you?"

"Mm, I've not been able to make the manipulation do much more than cause the ink to fade and reappear," Sai explained, deftly ignoring the blonde shinobi who was still shooting him angry looks across the table, "but Shizune-san has been pleased with the progress so far, and states we may even be able to mix the pigments with poisons in the coming months." He blinked. "Do travelling performers usually poison their audience?"

"Nnnno, but I'm sure a few well-painted flowers on faces and tigers on arms will keep them happy, especially if you've managed to work with Tenzou to produce more unusual shades of ink." Kakashi barely paused at Sai's query, testament to how long he'd been fielding off the former Root agent's lingering weirdness. Sakura had perked up with professional interest at his mention of poisons, but soon lapsed into pensive silence as the team discussed around her what they were planning to do to make themselves into a believable outfit.

She missed Sasuke's fervent rejection at the thought of him dancing unless he had a sword in his hand, and the subsequent long argument with Kakashi on why sword dancing was _not_ particularly popular when he intended to kill someone at the end of the dance; she didn't even pause in drinking her tea and furrowing her brows when Tenzou displayed his ever-increasing plethora of flowers he could produce out of thin air. She still didn't react much when Kakashi's firm demand that he was going to take on the role of troupe master sparked another bickering session, punctuated with the arrival of a second course of sweets.

In fact, Sakura didn't like where this was going at all. Enough so to make her forget the awkward feeling in the room, which had blessedly lessened as the boys started to get into their preparations. She knew Shizune wouldn't have listed anything under her name, because her fellow attendant would know exactly what skill Sakura should bring to the table.

It just so happened that that skill was one thing she was more than reluctant to share with her teammates. Thinking back desperately to the long-ago kunoichi training classes she'd muddled her way through, the medic sorted through her memories of lesson after lesson on behaviour, manners, misdirection and technique to see if anything stood out that could save her. She'd barely started remembering how to arrange flowers when Kakashi interrupted her increasingly frantic thoughts, refilling her cup as she'd forgotten at some point to indulge in more of the delicious tea.

"Well, Sakura-chan?" He said expectantly. _Oh shit, he's been talking._ One thing she knew Kakashi didn't appreciate was being ignored, especially when he was in business-mode, but she had been truly too preoccupied with trying to claw her way out of the hole the Hokage had unexpectedly dropped her in.

"Ah… yes?" She said helplessly, resisting the urge to hit him with one of her please-forgive-me pouts.

"I said, Shizune hasn't offered any suggestions for your role as part of this operation, so I was wondering if you had any ideas on what you could do?"

She breathed out in a rush as all eyes at the table turned towards her. Stalling, she let a pale hand creep forward towards the fresh array of traditional sweets heaped invitingly on the table while looking anywhere but at her friends.

"Um, I could also tumble? Sort of like a double act, with Naruto?" The man in question snorted through his nose, clearly expressing without words what he thought of the acrobatic abilities of a woman whose favourite method of fighting was straight for the vitals.

"No?" Her green eyes flitted towards the next likely target. "Ah, I've learned a lot about flower arranging from Ino, I could…" her hands moved in a weak approximation of a bundle of flowers as she pointed to Tenzou.

"Sakura, we're aiming to be performers, not court attendants," Kakashi chided her, but she could see the amused glint in his eyes. He was enjoying this, or enjoying guessing what she was going to lay claim to, or enjoying any number of mysterious things about her current predicament. "So unfortunately, I think that the last thing the audience would be interested in is seeing you arrange the flowers that have mysteriously appeared from nowhere, instead of claiming them for themselves. Not that," he added kindly, "it wouldn't be lovely."

"Oh, you're right, I guess…" She bit her lip while thinking of the next option. Sai's inky experiments were out as her artistic abilities extended to a steady hand and not much further, and she hadn't heard what Sasuke's plans were but she wasn't going to get involved with _that,_ for the sake of her sanity.

"What did you say you were going to do again, Kakashi?" She queried. He'd likely rib her for admitting to not paying attention - although she doubted much got past him anyway - but she was running out of options fast.

"I'm going to be something of a troupe master," he replied, staring down his cloth-covered nose at her. "But I'll also chime in here and there with music if the situation calls for it."

Ah. She'd forgotten he liked to dabble in playing instruments, though she was surprised to hear that he thought it a strong enough skill to ply as an artist. The only time Sakura had ever heard him play he had heroically strummed his way through a simple piece on the shamisen without much in the way of true skill. No matter that he'd only been playing to mask the sounds of their target choking from the poison she'd slipped in his drink: it had not been anything memorable.

"Maybe I could be the glamorous assistant for the production? See that everyone's comfortable, hand out drinks, hold your instruments?" While the medic hated being relegated to a supporting role on a normal occasion this was better than the alternative.

"Not good enough, I'm afraid." Kakashi was shaking his head. "If we want to make sure we're _all_ allowed into Lord Ichidate's presence we'll have to prove that we can offer him something entertaining. I'm not keen on splitting the group in a situation like this and as he's such a fan of the arts, he'll likely have his own assistants at the ready. Isn't there anything you might be able to do?"

That was it. She'd run out of time. No matter what Sasuke was planning on doing for his performance - and at this point she was _highly_ tempted to ask to save herself the embarrassment - it looked like she was just going to have to admit one of her most closely guarded secrets.

"Fine," she growled, defeat bringing a tinge of anger to her voice. Sensing Naruto perking up in interest out the corner of her eye, she stared her team leader square in the face as she practically barked, "I dance."

There was a split second where Sakura wished the ground would open up and swallow her, even if she had to punch it to do so.

"No, you don't," Naruto immediately said in confusion. "I've seen you in the bar and you move like you're stuck in a Water Prison jutsu."

Sai's hurriedly muffled laughter and Sasuke's rapidly climbing eyebrows, coupled with Tenzou's discreet coughing into his hand that was _definitely not a laugh,_ made the tips of her ears burn as bright as the red screens of the room they sat in.

"No, it's true," Sakura countered, not once lowering her gaze from Kakashi's in a kind of challenge. If anyone was to break down her self-esteem at this moment it would be him, but he remained completely silent, his face closed to her interpretation. "I dance." She repeated the phrase with a finality that sounded better suited to a sentence. "Shizune didn't write anything down in there, right?" She didn't wait for an answer. "It's because she knows I do it. I've been talking to some of the patients in the hospital about incorporating it into their rehabilitation sessions."

At that, she resolutely stuffed a dango into her mouth and swore not to justify it any further. Kakashi still hadn't said anything and she was acutely aware of his gaze fixed on her lowered head when Sasuke spoke the first words he'd said to her since that fateful night last month.

"What kind of dancing?"

This mission was going to be the end of her.

* * *

Kakashi realised he'd been staring at Sakura for far too long and hadn't formulated anything beyond a surprised expression at her revelation. In all their recent missions together and extended close history he'd never caught wind of this hobby, but her defensive posture and refusal to meet anyone's gaze marked it out as the truth. And if her rapidly spreading blush was any indication it wasn't just the kind of dancing you'd find in a theatre production.

Either Tsunade didn't know or she knew _exactly_ what she was doing, and it was a testament to the Godaime's craftiness that Kakashi couldn't decide which. Then he promptly felt the wind get knocked out of him as his mind pieced together that time he'd accidentally saw the pink haired young woman almost naked as he stumbled into the wrong tent with the thought of her dancing in a decidedly non-rehab-friendly fashion. And while Sakura was just a friend - just one of his best friends and his top choice for mission pairings and his occasional library partner - Kakashi couldn't help but let the image hover in his imagination for just a second too long before relegating the medic back into the 'strictly sexless' category he reserved for her master and the other too-crazy women of his acquaintance.

Biting back an exasperated sound - sometimes it was entirely inconvenient to have an active imagination - Kakashi clapped his hands together in an unconscious impression of Tsunade while he announced, "well that's that, isn't it?"

If he was lucky, this mission might just kill him yet.

* * *

AN: I don't own Naruto.

This came about because I've spent the last few weeks reigniting my Kakasaku passion with some amazing fics, and this idea has been chomping at the bit to get started. What a mammoth first chapter in which nothing much happens...


	2. Avoidance and Mockery

**Chapter 2: Avoidance and Mockery**

* * *

True to form, Kakashi was late to their meeting point the next morning, but on this occasion Sakura wouldn't have minded if he'd simply declined to show up at all.

The remainder of yesterday had been a painful endeavour in which she blatantly ignored Naruto's attempts to coax more information out of her while they wandered round the civilian marketplace for supplies. And when he finally trailed off to give his goodbyes to Hinata she'd been robbed of a few hours of peace by the sight of Sai sitting amiably on her doorstep, sketchbook in hand. Normally she enjoyed their artist dates, but when he suggested with perfect innocence that he'd like to sketch her while she danced it had been all the kunoichi could do not to send him into the hospital before the mission had even begun.

This morning, only the sight of Tenzou's blessedly calm countenance had stopped her from losing her temper when Sasuke appeared on the bridge and repeated his question from the day before. Even while the doctor in her appreciated his interest as a step in the right direction for his rehabilitation, the womanly side of her resented his persistence in light of their recent awkward exchange.

Did he really have to persist with such an invasive line of questioning? She was tempted to tell the psychiatric department that he was displaying obsessive tendencies; that would get him taken back off the mission list and by extension, out of her hair until this had all blown over.

Sasuke was one of her dearest friends - and her first love - but in the cool dim of dawn Sakura seriously contemplated punching him square in the face and setting his delicate bones in a squint.

It wasn't until Kakashi ambled towards them and looked cheated that Sakura realised they were still missing a conspicuously blonde teammate. Sai wasn't a morning person - evidenced by the way he had arrived soundlessly and now stood next to the wood user on the bridge with his eyes carefully closed - but it wasn't like Naruto to arrive with anything less than a fanfare, which ruled out the possibility of him being anywhere in the vicinity.

"Where's Naruto?" Kakashi asked needlessly, looking more than a little put out at having his last place arrival stolen from him. When Sasuke shrugged and the rest of the party just stared at him blankly, Sakura watched the jounin try and muster an indignant attitude before he gave up and slouched against the barrier of the little red bridge, their unspoken meeting point for missions for over ten years. It was simply too early to care.

Resigned to waiting for their exuberant friend to grace them with his presence, Sakura carefully eased her heavy pack from her shoulders with a calming breath, and casting thoughts of an uncharacteristically interested Sasuke aside, continued her ritual for leaving the village.

All ninja had one: a small, silent ritual to say goodbye to a home that demanded so much of them.

She knew Kakashi spent extra long at the memorial, and Sai chose a section of the village's scenery to paint with extra attention to detail, and that Naruto stood atop the Hokage monument and surveyed his future domain; Sasuke liked to perform kata at Training Ground 7 and she suspected Tenzou spent the night in the Konoha greenhouses. A litany of private moments, shared with no-one else, for a profession where each trip outside the gates could be the last.

Sakura's own version of the secret rite was less exotic, and came in two parts: one at home, and one when she reached the starting point of the expedition. An hour ago she'd been immersed in a near trance as she finished packing for their trip, movements almost meditative in their slowness as carefully folded provisions and precisely selected weapons slotted into their compartments in her standard issue pack.

One kunai, kept razor sharp for the clothes she cut away while healing the wounded.

A senbon, the perfect tool for removing stubborn shrapnel from a cut or a scrape.

The deadly vial of painless, fast acting poison she always hoped she wouldn't need to use.

Two squares of chocolate, a habit picked up from a streak of miserable missions in the rain.

Her lipstick, which she sometimes daringly swept across her lips when nobody was looking.

Small things, inconsequential on their own but when piled together held the very essence of Sakura; brilliant medic, dangerous warrior, former girly girl with a touch of self-indulgence. If any one of the tiny parcels was missing from her kit she always felt the mission didn't go quite as planned, and so over the years had incorporated their preparations into her silent readying for the job ahead.

Satisfied with their presence at her feet now, Sakura breathed in the heavy morning air of her village and let herself relax fully, completely at ease in a way she wouldn't be again until they'd reentered the imposing gates of her home. A shinobi through and through, she never quite felt at ease in the wider world - always drawing an unconscious line between _Konoha_ and _The Field_ \- and so the kunoichi relished this last minute of utter thoughtlessness before assuming the watchfulness that wouldn't leave her even as they slept.

* * *

Kakashi had been about to open the day's banter - absence of his most enthusiastic participant aside - starting with the easiest target when he saw his unwitting victim drop her pack to her feet and allow her entire body to lose its instinctual tension. He knew what Sakura was doing; he'd spent countless mornings standing next to his younger teammate as she completely lowered her defenses, savouring a last moment of calm before donning the mental armour that was every ninja's survival technique. Had even held a temporary teammate's arm in a too-painful grip when the man had decided that it was an opportune time to make a move on Tsunade's legendary apprentice.

Sakura hadn't reacted at the time (it wasn't in her nature to thank another for saving her if she didn't need to be saved), but Kakashi hadn't failed to notice that she left the young man's bruises prominently glaring against the pale skin of his wrist. When part of her pride as a medic stemmed from her ability to leave her patients without a blemish it was as much an admission of approval as he had been likely to get.

Today, surrounded by the team she preferred above all others, the jounin saw the extra deep dip of Sakura's shoulders and the way her eyes closed, truly closed, no hint of emerald peeking from beneath her lashes as she left herself completely open to them. And even Sasuke's difficulty in re-establishing boundaries post-Orochimaru wouldn't drive him to disturb her now. Kakashi had worked with warriors outside the shinobi profession in the past, men who'd been as battle hardened and scarred as the most veteran ninja, but he'd never understood their utter insistence on thinking and acting as one, never allowing each other these small moments of meditative silence before the storm.

A shinobi's strength was in that solitary streak they all possessed: the secretiveness of their goodbye rituals, the very nature of their training, and their demands for single moments left undisturbed.

Even Naruto, Kakashi knew, wasn't keen on broaching these boundaries; hence why the younger man was currently teetering on his very tiptoes as he held himself braced in the over-the-top position he'd just body-flickered to them in, comically holding his arms akimbo as he noticed his female teammate's pose. The jinchuuriki's face was an exercise in concentration as he tried to manoeuvre into a less agonising pose, but a delicately heaved sigh behind Kakashi told him that it hadn't been successful.

"You're even later than Kakashi-sensei, Naruto." Sakura muttered, her tone grumpy but the smile in her eyes betraying that it was just for show. She still looked far too utterly relaxed to be heading out on a mission, but it wouldn't be long before the sleepy quality of her jade gaze hardened into the diamond focus of a shinobi prepared to kill.

Naruto grinned, sending a cheeky wink in Kakashi's direction. "Sorry, Sakura-chan - I was a little held up." And if the slight dusting of red on his cheeks was any indication, Kakashi figured it had something to do with the blonde ninja's shy-but-serious girlfriend.

Sasuke grunted from his position slumped against the bridge's red post. "How could you be held up? I went past your house to pick you up, dobe, and you weren't there."

"Yep, well, you're right there, teme!" Naruto replied, doing an admirable job of keeping the embarrassment out of his voice as he scooped Sakura up into one of his bone-crushing "morning" hugs, nonchalantly avoiding the topic. Sasuke blinked, clearly confused, before he shrugged and set off in the direction of the gate without waiting to see if the others would follow.

That was something the rehabilitation clinic had spoken to Kakashi about when Sasuke was re-added to the mission roster and he'd reluctantly allowed the Uchiha to be placed under his care permanently, rejoining Team Kakashi after a string of occasional guest missions. Sakura, with her prim medic's persona fixed firmly in place, had also explained to Kakashi on one of their many return trips that some aspects of their teammate's personality had been left potentially underdeveloped.

Years of carefully coached ignorance under Orochimaru's thumb, coupled with the teenage years spent honing himself into a destructive weapon had left Sasuke painfully immature in many ways: sometimes even more so than Sai, who'd had years of integration into the wider Konoha community to create a semi-normal young adulthood for himself. To Sasuke, saying goodbye to a girlfriend was something that presumably took as long as it did to say it; it wasn't an all-night endeavour that resulted in the kind of flushed cheekiness Naruto was currently displaying. And while certainly the rest of Team Kakashi didn't ever comment on the young ninja's naivety Kakashi himself knew that it must have coloured his relationships with the rest of the shinobi of their age group, resulting in a strange mixture of a man who'd seen death and destruction and horror with little of the other aspects of an adult's experience to temper him.

With that in mind, it wasn't hard to guess that the dark-haired shinobi had once again said or done something inappropriate to one of his companions to foster such an awkward atmosphere, and if the mission was to work (and if his inevitable report to the psychiatric team was to be accurate), Kakashi had to figure out what had happened.

Not to mention his own curiosity would never be satisfied if he didn't figure out what could make the notoriously unshakeable Naruto-Sakura combo so ruffled.

So, as they started off towards the gates Kakashi put his powers of lazy observation into practice, watching over the spine of his book at the way his teammates were behaving with one another. Sasuke's immaturity _must_ have had some bearing on the subtly tense situation he was sensing from his three former students, and by the looks of it, it was something neither Tenzou nor Sai had been involved with (though they'd have to be blind not to pick up on the uneasiness).

And based on the way Naruto's easy good mood edged into something more anxious and conciliatory as they stepped over the gates and started on the mission proper, the boisterous ninja had either been at fault for whatever happened or at least felt a healthy amount of guilt at the outcome. Kakashi, of course, didn't miss the way the blonde ninja was liberally piling Sakura's favourite sweets into the side pocket of her heavy medic's pack. Ah, it was his fault, and she was the one suffering for it.

As much as Kakashi would like to deny it, Sakura taking the brunt of their interactions wasn't an uncommon occurrence within the team. Maybe he could convince Naruto to treat her to something other than Ichiraku on the way back to the village.

That just left what exactly had went down.

Sakura would never tell him and Sasuke likely would colour the explanation with his own misunderstanding of what had happened, so that meant Kakashi would need to get it out of Naruto, who was surprisingly good at keeping secrets and only getting better as he got older. Luckily, the copy ninja had long since learned that a little bribery greased the wheels of many a conversation with his subordinates…

* * *

If Kakashi stared at the back of her head for much longer Sakura was sure she'd start screaming. It wasn't a very kunoichi-appropriate reaction to what was clearly an attempt to work out what had happened between her and Sasuke - because _of course_ Mr. laissez-faire had picked up on it - but she couldn't help it. The accidental interruption of her ritual had left the medic feeling uncomfortable and on edge, and as they tromped down the well-worn main thoroughfare leading from the village she had the awful feeling that this mission would shape up to be an S-rank test of her patience.

Made worse by the fact that they couldn't travel as ninja; they'd changed into civilian clothes and donned their subtle disguises in the purpose-built room at the gates, because as Kakashi reasoned, it wouldn't do for them to travel along bypassing villages without building somewhat of a reputation as a troupe. That meant stopping at any likely places and drumming up an audience before performing next to the town inn in the evening - an exercise that she was sure would lose any novelty by the time they hit the border.

Not even the exquisitely patterned, recently-repaired kimono she was currently carrying across both arms could lift her spirits completely. It had belonged to her mother, who'd loved to dance when she was alive, and it was specially constructed to allow for a flowing movement that had all the restrained grace of a kimono-gait with none of the shuffling. She'd been surprised and pleased to see it gracing the wall of their prep room; Tsunade must have had it specially folded and cleaned, and Sakura had long since stopped allowing these invasions of privacy on her mentor's part colour her gratitude for what was usually an enormous display of favouritism.

Unfortunately, the kimono was the real deal; heavy in a way that required a touch of chakra to carry properly. As soon as they reached the adjoining town and picked up their carts (because of course a performing troupe couldn't be seen arriving on something as mundane as their own two feet) she'd be glad to be rid of its weight, but right now the subtle scent of her mother's perfume emerging from the paper wrapping was keeping Sakura blessedly grounded.

That, and Shizune's message via a smirking Izumo at the gates that there was a private spa lounge with her name on it on their way home from the mission. There were _definite_ perks to being the Hokage's apprentice.

Mood levelling out as her boys blessedly decided to drop the current hot topic of her hobby, Sakura was content to trot briskly alongside Naruto as they made their way towards Fukuro Town. Unique in its proximity to the Hidden Village, the town was a flourishing marketplace that attracted those merchants too frightened of or without clearance to enter Konoha itself. Held at arm's length to the ninja village, in part thanks to the ancient genjutsu that obfuscated the path and led curious visitors wandering back towards the town square, Fukuro had the same proud attitude as other towns near Hidden Villages in other countries: a kind of _look at our closest neighbours_ outlook that assumed some of Konoha's mysterious glamour.

Or so it might appear to civilians; Sakura herself viewed the town as a place to visit when an unusual merchant came to display their wares and as the site of many a D-ranked mission.

Such proximity to their fearsome neighbour didn't deter the inhabitants from calling on the services of its youngest recruits, and long ago Team 7 had spent many a day in the backyards and alleyways of the town, cleaning and chasing and investigating the many undercurrents of daily civilian life.

"Our carts are to be delivered by noon, so we'll wait for them in the cafe over there," Kakashi drawled, for all intents and purposes his usual lazy self. "Or, you can visit the bazaar if there's anything left you need to pick up." To those who didn't know him as well as Sakura did the copy ninja didn't sound any different from normal, but she had to hide a smirk at the definite plaintive note to his voice and the matching sulk he wore on his face.

His _uncovered_ face. Kakashi hated this aspect of undercover work, something he'd admitted to her in a rare unguarded moment a few months back. When he couldn't contrive an excuse like bandages, a surgical mask or an elaborate construction made from scarves he had to go unmasked, and as much as his three original teammates had gotten over the surprise of his admittedly handsome features he still appeared to resent the fact they'd seen him at all.

Personally Sakura knew it had to be psychological as it certainly wasn't for any physical reason: he looked a little younger than his age, sure, and there was the dimple he fervently denied the existence of, but Hatake Kakashi couldn't be described as anything but a good looking man in his prime.

She sidled up to him, unable to resist.

"You know, I'm sure a troupe leader could get away with wearing a mask…I could take a walk around the bazaar and find you one." That was how her teasing went with the older ninja: a little sting and then the honey to make up for it. He usually gave as good as he got, something which many of those her age struggled to match. They were either too cruel or too slow with the rejoinders, making her feel either hurt or something of a bully or an awkward combination of each. It took practice to butt heads as deftly as Kakashi did with her, and the kunoichi relished it as much as she did their less barbed turns of conversation.

"Mah…"the older jounin let out a carefully staged sigh. "That's nice of you, Sakura-chan, but then they'd sell you something to match your hair and we know how _that_ would look."

"Right." She snorted. "You _are_ a little old for florals. But sure I couldn't interest you in some sequins?" Giving him a look that could only be described as downright devious, the medic skipped forward to join in with Tenzou's amiable discussion with Sai about the flowers by the roadside, heavy weight of the kimono a counterpoint to the light feeling in her chest. A bout of harmless fun always set her straight; after all, it was just a little payback for the way he'd been staring into the back of her head since they'd left the village.

* * *

The team were quite rightly fascinated with the quaint little carts, though Kakashi had seen the intricately carved caravans on a previous trip to the nomadic Claw country. The earlier exchange had been completed without incident, punctuated only by the young ostler's blushing explanation of how to hitch the horses, stammering in his explanation when confronted by a smiling Sakura at her most unconsciously flirtatious. She'd been in high spirits for hours, no doubt buoyed by the purchase of a floral sequined scarf which she now wore jovially in place of her hitae-ate.

True to form, the medic had spent a few hours scouring the marketplace for unmentionable trinkets and a host of confusing "necessities", leaving Kakashi and the rest of the team in the cool shade of the cafe, her wax paper package balanced carefully on the table while she no doubt spent her last mission's paycheck on frivolities. It was something he had, over the years, tried to ease her out of to no avail.

Kakashi hadn't looked inside the abandoned package, but his sensitive nose picked up the unmistakable smell of heirloom silk, and he guessed it was a kimono from its deceptively bulky appearance. It hadn't been hard to pick up the subtle exertion of chakra that Sakura had been wielding to carry it, and if he'd been feeling less contrary Kakashi would've offered to take a turn like the good team leader he should be. Instead he'd allowed himself to be nettled by her teasing: he knew she often joked with him under the impression he was much more accomplished than her peers at the subtle art of bantering, and though it was true, today he'd felt a little put out at the relentless "you're old!" tactic she'd employed for their discussions as they travelled.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that he'd soon be as much of a pen-pusher as most retired ninja, but Kakashi found himself sitting in the corner of the lead cart in a full-blown sulk.

Lapsing into silence after one jab too many at his supposed decrepitness, he'd spent the rest of the afternoon mulling over the fact that his entire team probably thought he was over the hill, dull, predictable, and a host of other things he didn't _really_ believe they thought of him, but it felt good to mope.

Watching the other ninja now, the silver haired jounin felt a little left out as they clambered over the slow-moving procession of carts, exclaiming over the intricately knotted willow thatch covering and scalloped edges of the main frames. Even Tenzou, whom he could usually trust to be level headed to extremes, appeared excited; though that may have had something to do with Sakura's animated description of what she thought the carts would look like if the willow branches were flowering, and could he _please_ give it a shot? All this while Sasuke and Naruto appeared equally absorbed in braiding the manes of the determined little ponies that pulled their caravans, with Sai furiously scribbling in the next cart over with his trademark 'do not disturb' frown etched across his fine features. Kakashi didn't have much to contribute to the carts' decoration; his skills lay in corralling the horses (of course, the ninken helped) and making sure they were settled in for the night, and as the day drew on he felt his brows drawing together in a decidedly grumpy look.

Why was he so annoyed? It wasn't clear any more, but he didn't know anyone else as good at the silent sulk as he was, and he was rather enjoying (in a moody sort of way) the way everyone's conversations drifted further away, unconsciously avoiding his passive-aggressive contribution.

So much so that when he held up a hand and announced they were stopping for the night, the copy ninja witnessed Sakura's megawatt grin dim considerably as she properly looked at him for the first time in hours. Hopping down from her perch atop a shaggy pony's back, the kunoichi made her way over to him as he busied himself with disentangling the simple reins from the cart and barking orders to his excited summons.

A tentative hand reached out towards his arm, fingers curled slightly as though she expected him to jerk out of reach, or worse, throw her hand off.

"Kakashi? Are you alright?" She didn't often call him sensei when Naruto wasn't in the conversation, and he was glad she hadn't now; any further reminders of his age would likely have had him snapping needlessly at her. Emerald eyes blinked up into his grey ones, trying to read the emotions flickering across them. Sakura had always been the best at reading his expressions: her natural empathy enhanced by both her kunoichi training and her medic experience made her a skilled reader of others.

Unfortunately for her, his cloth mask was only the first layer in his staunch barriers against others, and she usually only read what he wanted her to; tonight it was nothing, so she left her hand lingering near his arm as her lips pursed together in the barest hint of a frown.

"Was it something I said?" Ah. She _was_ good: he'd forgotten for an instant that they'd spent most of the last six months watching one another's back, with which came the need to almost feel what your partner was thinking. A ninja who couldn't read their partner's intentions was a dead ninja, and Sakura was as always a cut above most.

"It's nothing." It's you.

"I _really_ don't believe you."

"Well, you should."

She blinked at him once, twice, and he could see the avalanche that was her impressive temper threatening to cascade upon him.

"OK, then…" Sakura said slowly, her hand retreating and curling up into a fist at her side. Kakashi knew the action as one of her tells, a physical manifestation of whatever annoyance she felt.

"Why don't you go and help the others with getting the carts into order?" It was a dismissal couched as a suggestion and she knew it. He followed it up with a small smile, intended to hover between polite and false, but the effect just wasn't the same with his full face on display.

"Sure…"she began to look dejected and Kakashi began to feel like an ass. Why was he irritated? Because they laughed at him and called him old - something that was a regular and accepted part of Team Kakashi playing around? The pettiness of his behaviour crept up on him, making him roll his eyes at himself, except he realised the mistake straight away as Sakura's dejected features began to curl into something a whole lot closer to anger.

While a good argument with her was certainly on the cards for it to be a proper last mission, Kakashi didn't want it to be like this, with him feeling decidedly like he was taking his own insecurities out on her as she clearly tried to remain within the boundaries of respect.

"Ah…" He held up a hand as she opened her mouth to let him have it. "I was rolling my eyes at myself. Sorry, I'm being an ass." He shrugged, the hand moving automatically to scratch the spot where his hitae-ate would normally rest on the back of his head. "I don't know what's up with me today."

Well, he mostly did, but he wasn't going to tell her.

The near miss was almost worth it to see the storm pass harmlessly over the medic's pretty features, her face smoothing out into one of the smiles she gave him when she thought she had him figured out. And maybe she did; just the sight of the action made him start to feel better.

"Don't worry about it," Sakura said softly, small smile still playing over her features. As quick as she was to anger, his teammate was even quicker to forgive and forget. "I'm not myself today either."

She leaned closer to him conspiratorially. "Were you interrupted at the cenotaph?"

He sighed, remembering how the traditional pre-mission visit - even after everything that had happened with Obito, he still had Rin and Minato-sensei to talk to - had been marred with thoughts that perhaps this was the _last_ time he'd come to pay his respects before heading to risk his life in service to their sacrifices.

"Yeah, something like that."

The hand that had been hesitant before came to rest confidently just below the crook of Kakashi's elbow, causing him to let go of the pony's reins as the jounin turned to look at her fully.

"That makes two of us, then." Interrupted in their going-away rituals; maybe that _was_ why he felt surly. Trust Sakura to put a reason to his behaviour before he himself had. "We'll just have to make up for it next time we're sent away, won't we?" The small squeeze the kunoichi gave his arm hovered a little too long to be considered simply reassuring, but he was too preoccupied with the sudden tight feeling in his chest to figure out her intention.

And despite her empathetic nature, Sakura either didn't notice or misinterpreted the sadness in Kakashi's smile as he replied,

"That we will, Sakura-chan."

* * *

Crisis averted - though Sakura still wasn't sure just why Kakashi had been so moody yesterday - the rest of the trip towards the string of border towns leading up to the estate was shaping up to be blessedly uneventful. As much as she relished a good fight, Sakura was enough of a healer to appreciate that no fighting meant no accidents, though if Naruto insisted on trampling the newly-flowering roofs of their carts she couldn't guarantee that a silently smouldering Tenzou wouldn't decide to inflict something decidedly nasty on their hyperactive partner.

At least the smell of crushed willow leaves was one she favoured.

There looked to be only a few score miles until their destination, a nondescript little village the medic remembered from past trips towards the border. Remarkable only in that it provided a good avenue of the trees favoured by Konoha ninja for travel, there was likely to be an inn, a market space and not much else.

In other words, it was a perfect first stop to practice their undoubtedly disorganised cover. Sakura still felt nervous to the extreme; Kakashi had by way of apology allowed her to sit out of last night's demonstration, ignoring the loudly voiced complaints of Naruto and quieter, though no less tangible, disappointment of their other teammates as she sat at the side and made critical comments on their routines.

As it stood, they wouldn't be allowed to perform for Lord Ichidate's kitchen staff let alone the man himself.

Kakashi himself had looked entirely unruffled with their situation until Tenzou's query on whether the ninken would enjoy being part of the act (which elicited such a fervent _no_ that Sakura had to wonder if they'd in fact _love_ to participate) but she'd been unable to stop thinking over their somewhat heated conversation earlier in the day. She was still thinking about it now, even though he'd returned to his usual laidback self, book not in hand but otherwise as relaxed as though he was lying in his favourite spot atop the Konoha bakery.

So preoccupied with alternating between trying to figure out what had riled him and trying to maintain her own sanity in the face of Sasuke's continued insistence on staring her out, it took her an embarrassingly long moment to register the sudden loud noise that had the rest of the team scrambling to alert.

Despite the delayed reaction Sakura's finely honed medic instinct immediately deciphered the noise as the kind of screaming that one could only achieve when faced with unimaginable pain. There wasn't a moment more hesitation: trusting the boys to cover her, Sakura burst out of the cart with one long movement, knuckles and toes brushing the startled hide of the pony leading her cart in her haste to reach the situation.

It wasn't long before she pieced together what had happened; the kind of obscenely gory accident that plagued farming communities was playing out just a few hundred metres away from their procession. With the scene already drawing a crowd of morbidly fascinated onlookers and coworkers, Sakura bounded over the gathered people in a chakra-enhanced leap, landing solidly in the squelching mud of a Fire rice paddy.

"Move, please," she grunted, brushing aside a stunned worker to reach the thrashing body in the shallow water.

It was bad. Horrifically so, if the redness of the water that leached into her simple travelling kimono was any indication. A young man, barely into adulthood, lay quivering in the extremes of pain as the cruel blade of his sickle bit ever deeper into the soft skin of his abdomen. The wound smelled bad, which was an incredibly bad sign: he'd punctured the intestine, and if she didn't work fast he'd poison himself before the bleeding killed him.

Even if she did act quickly, stomach injuries were some of the hardest to beat, and the thought of a life snuffing out in her hands caused Sakura to kick herself into the hyper-alert state that medics adopted when dealing with critical battlefield wounds.

Situation assessed, and feeling the reassuring chakra signatures of her team securing the area, the medic wasted no time in calling up her soothing healing chakra, hands already poised to staunch the bleeding as she let her senses extend inwards. It wasn't a large wound but it was a deep one, the curvature of the sickle lending itself to the kind of grievous cut more commonly seen on a deliberate stab wound.

Luckily, those were the kind of injuries that Sakura, the Fire nation's most accomplished field medic, dealt best with.

While saving a life was never a game she relished the challenge that a difficult wound presented her with - the dirty water, onlookers, and general unpreparedness elevating what was already a complex operation into something many medics would class as hopeless. And yet despite this Sakura knew she could save the boy's life.

With one finger nestled grotesquely in his wound to focus on closing the nick on his intestine and rerouting the poisonous acid back to its natural channels, she let her other hand grasp the boy's bloody torso for better purchase, green chakra flowing into him all the while. Sliding a muck-covered leg under his thrashing ones the medic flexed her thigh muscles, effectively bringing his lower half out of the water with a chakra-enhanced snap of her knee. Such a complex flaring of her twin chakra types required utter concentration - something hard to come by when the sounds of Naruto and Tenzou shooing the crowd away permeated her trance - but she managed.

She'd healed worse in _far_ worse conditions. Even dodged a few stray kunai thrown at her the last time she worked on a stomach wound, so although the young man's surprisingly strong flailing was making him a difficult patient it was nothing compared to the mental exertion required to keep yourself safe at the same time.

Suddenly, a pair of familiar gloved hands appeared on either side of the farmhand's head; Kakashi, kneeling to the side of her to stop worst of the struggling and to keep his head out of the water with the new bent-back position she'd maneuvered him into. Sakura flashed her assistant a grin that was more a baring of teeth than anything societally considered a smile: he was brave to move into her circle of work, but as always he anticipated what she needed and was offering it before her brain had processed enough to ask.

Whatever had been wrong with him forgotten, once again the kunoichi was fiercely glad to be blessed with teammates who knew exactly what she needed and exactly how to offer it.

The flare of her chakra illuminating both of their faces in a medicinal glow, Sakura noted the answering grin on his face before she bent back to the business of pulling someone back from the very brink of death.

* * *

He'd forgotten she damn near worked miracles with her hands. It had been ages since they'd been in any kind of danger that precluded a fatal wound, and when Sakura finally stood, muddied and bloodied and wearing an expression that could only be described as triumphant Kakashi had been forced once again to confront the enormity of her success in her field.

Barely listening through the influx of gratitude and demands that they - _she_ \- dine on the village's finest that night, Kakashi had allowed the villagers to guide them to the village square, preoccupied with what her prowess meant for her future in Konoha as he allowed himself to be shown into a fine room at the inn with a gently steaming bath awaiting his use.

Towards the end the boy had gone into shock and Sakura hadn't hesitated before snaking the hand that had been in his wound out and laying it firmly on his chest, proceeding to manipulate chakra in such precise waves he wished he still had the Sharingan to watch it in isolation. There had been close to a full minute where Sakura had been simultaneously flushing the poison from his blood, replenishing the blood the boy had lost, sealing up his wound and stimulating his heart to avoid cardiac arrest; all this while bracing him with a chakra-infused leg and half an eye on his vitals.

Kakashi sincerely doubted that anyone other than Tsunade at her very best could even come close to the level of control she'd had at that moment.

Now, sitting at the large table in the town elder's home (of course they'd had the luck, or misfortune, of saving the head's grandson) he felt acutely the loss that Konoha hospital must be feeling while the kunoichi had been pulled around on his whims for the past half-year.

Sitting to his left in a habit formed when he'd still had the Sharingan, Sakura looked deceptively interested in stuffing her face with the local cuisine, but Kakashi wasn't fooled; he could tell she felt he had something to say to her, evidenced by the slight discomfort in her expression and the way she squirmed in her seat, looking for a humorous moment exactly like she had on one occasion where he'd caught her trying to steal his favourite dango.

"Does Tsunade know you can do that?" He blurted out, unable to keep quiet any longer.

The medic swallowed a mouthful of food and turned her full attention to him, though not before checking that Naruto held the attention of her patient and his family through a loudly explained anecdote.

"Heal a stomach wound?" She raised a pink eyebrow. "I'd hope so."

"You know what I mean."

"Are you angry I blew our cover? You know I couldn't leave someone to die like that."

She was trying to throw him off the scent, but the jounin hadn't spent the greater part of his life around bloodhounds to be thrown off easily.

"Don't be ridiculous, Sakura-chan. I know you'd never leave someone to die in agony if you could help it." He levelled her a direct gaze - which, he noticed with gratification, had her swallowing in some amount of nervousness. "I'm talking about your technique."

"It's not unheard of to be able to manipulate your healing chakra at the same time as your elemental force," she explained, hand clenching around her abandoned chopsticks.

"I'm sure." He shrugged off her explanation, "but I doubt there's many medics alive could do it _three times over._ "

She bristled and he couldn't tell if it was in anger or self-defense.

"Tsunade can do it. Shizune at a push." A small hand waved in front of her face. "I'm sure there are others."

"Are you trying to tell me you don't have the strengths and weaknesses of every single one of your colleagues analysed to within an inch of their lives?" Kakashi laughed. "I don't believe that any more than I believe you'd have left that unfortunate young man to die."

"Well, alright, I'm pretty good at what I do. I don't think that's news to you, so what's the problem?"

"I'm thinking that maybe you shouldn't be dealing with field missions, when you could be in the hospital, I don't know, saving lives or something?" He knew she'd read beneath the underneath to his unspoken worry: aren't you too valuable to be out here?

Thankfully, she did. "And miss out on the _absolute joy_ your company has been over the last few months?" Sakura snorted in a very unladylike fashion. He wasn't impressed, and his continued silence made her expression smooth into something a little more serious. "Really though, Kakashi, you don't know what it's like being at home all the time. I spent two years out of the field while I worked on my training. Sometimes, you just need to run away and get into some good old fashioned trouble with your friends."

He was about to accept that was all the answer he'd get when she opened her mouth again.

"Anyway, I'm sure you'll know what I mean, soon enough." If the suggestive waggle of her eyebrows was any indication, Kakashi knew that she knew _precisely_ just how much he'd soon be clamouring to run away from it all. She had to know what this all was.

Rather embarrassingly choking on nothing, he glared at her just as she finished with,

"And maybe if I keep telling you all about how you're my favourite teammate you'll take me with you when you run away, hmm?" Giving him a cheeky wink, the kunoichi turned back towards her meal and launched into conversation with their host, leaving him with no opportunity to respond to her unspoken revelation.

 _Damn_ Haruno Sakura and her blatant misuse of her position as the Hokage's apprentice. When Kakashi was Hokage, he was suddenly sure the first thing he'd do would pry that all-access pass from her unrelenting fingers.

* * *

AN:

This chapter was fun! I hope you enjoyed it. I've got plenty more ideas for wider team interaction for the next chapter, but if there's any particular Team Kakashi combo you'd like to have a scene together in chapter 3 write me a review and I'll pop it in.


	3. Fishing and Flash Storms

Chapter 3: Fishing and Flash Storms

* * *

Over the course of the next few days Kakashi came to two conclusions: firstly, that if he ever heard the relentless cadence of a horse on the move again it would be too soon, and secondly, that while Sakura definitely knew of his impending Hokagedom she didn't realise quite how tight the noose was. Drawing on all his experience in the Torture & Interrogation Squad he'd managed to coax what she thought she knew out of her unsuspecting lips without giving anything away, though if the unsubtle looks she'd been throwing in his direction over the last day were any indication the conversation was becoming perilous. Mostly, she seemed relieved he had given up trying to figure out what had happened between her and Sasuke, but that was only on the back burner while he toyed with this latest line of investigation.

By the same token Kakashi had figured out that Naruto was as blessedly oblivious as ever while Sasuke either didn't know or had improved his cool-don't-care facade to ANBU-fooling levels. Sai and Tenzou were much harder reads - in fact, the soon-to-be Kage would not be surprised if Sai was already drawing up the rough sketches for his relief on the Hokage Monument - but at the moment the secret _appeared_ to be safe.

It was a good feeling to be able to just relax and pretend it wasn't happening, so most of his downtime since they had left the nameless little village a few days ago had largely consisted of lying in the caravan with his hands behind his head, trying semi-successfully to drown out the droning of hooves on the dirt.

The hooked end of a large fishing pole thwacked suddenly across the jounin's lap, startling him out of his reverie. Naruto crouched at the entrance to the caravan, the other end of the rod held in a loose grasp while he grinned in unexpected pleasure at taking the older man by surprise. Raising pale eyebrows and tilting his head in an expression that would've looked annoyed if it weren't for the amusement dancing in his grey eyes, Kakashi waited for an explanation.

"There's a nice, deep river just off the road," Naruto offered, shaking a can of bait invitingly. "What d'you say we convince Sakura-chan into her grilled fish special?"

Kakashi didn't need to be asked twice: the medic refused to cook for them unless absolutely necessary, citing her already significant contributions towards team upkeep while in the field, but she couldn't hide her weakness for freshly grilled fish and could usually be goaded into making enough to share. General ninja-related nosiness as well as his own sharp olfactory senses had already told Kakashi that she'd packed her special herb mix for the mission so the idea was clearly on the menu at some point.

"Where did you pick up the rod?" The shinobi asked, shooing his younger comrade ahead of him in his eagerness to escape the persistent rocking of their transport.

"Oh, Toma-san gave it to me before we left the village the other day: said we had to take some form of payment that wasn't just food."

"And Toma-san was…?" Kakashi frowned questioningly; the village where Sakura had performed her little miracle had been full of nondescript civilians and he'd been too keen to leave and get back on track to pay attention to who they were unless en masse.

"Sakura-chan's latest suitor," Naruto replied with a snort, "you know, the one who threw pebbles at our windows all night in case he caught a glimpse of her face."

Kakashi laughed, remembering the man now as the recipient of their medic's healing skills. They both knew that if the civilian hadn't been recuperating from his brush with death he'd have been recuperating from a brush with Sakura's temper: something infinitely more dangerous that only rose to a crescendo when she was interrupted in sleep.

Still chuckling, the two ninja made their way down the embankment off the road to where the river gurgled busily past them. The spring melt made for a fast current, and already Kakashi could see the fat, silvery bodies of trout hiding amongst the reeds on the far shore. He hummed in anticipation, feeling a little of what his dogs liked to call the thrill of the hunt while he watched as the caravans trundled to a halt and Sasuke busied himself with securing the cavalcade and the others milled around chatting.

"Sasuke really likes those ponies, huh?" Kakashi observed, prompting a laugh from the blonde man in front of him who was wrestling bait onto the rod's hook.

Naruto spared a glance over his shoulder at his best friend, the whisker marks on his cheeks quivering with mirth. "Don't let him hear you, sensei." The jinchuuriki warned. "I caught him stroking the one leading our caravan last night and he's been, sort of, _vibrating_ with built-up annoyance all day because of it."

"Ah," Kakashi replied. "That's what today's killing aura is all about, then?"

"You'd better believe it," Naruto replied with a short laugh. He sobered suddenly. "Thanks for letting him back on the team, Kakashi-sensei." His voice was serious enough that Kakashi looked him directly in the eyes. "I know you weren't keen at first."

It was true: he hadn't been. In fact he'd argued long and hard against it - privately to Tsunade of course - citing everything from the harmonious dynamic of the current Team Kakashi to the unfortunate past between the teammates to his own inability to remain objective in his dealings with the Uchiha. He'd only given in when Tsunade asked him to draw up a list of alternative options and there hadn't been a single soul who jumped into mind.

"Maa…" the silver haired shinobi replied noncommittally, hand reaching to scratch the back of his head.

"I mean it, really," Naruto pressed as he secured the fishing pole in the water, eyeing up the trout who were moving languidly on the opposite bank. "You're probably the only person in the entire world he respects."

Kakashi blinked, considering.

"He might love Sakura-chan and I," Naruto continued, "but you're the only person he'd actually consider _listening_ to on any kind of regular basis."

And there it was, his opportunity.

"So he loves you and Sakura-chan, huh?" Kakashi repeated, drawing on every ounce of his famous nonchalance. "Sure doesn't seem like there's a lot of love going around at the moment."

Unfortunately he'd worked with Naruto too long and the younger man knew him too well.

"Wait, wait wait _wait,"_ the blonde replied. "Oh no you don't, Kakashi-sensei! That's a completely different conver-that is un _fair_!"

Kakashi shrugged, palms up. "Ninja!" He said teasingly. "Being unfair is in the job description."

His teammate deflated. "I swear I'm not telling you," he muttered, turning his attention to the rod which remained unfortunately slack. "Sakura-chan would _seriously_ kill me for this one."

Kakashi didn't mind his rebuttal. After all, shinobi warfare was either a quick and dirty battle or a long, drawn out war filled with riddles and traps and outmaneuvering. He had patience; now he'd opened the playing field they both knew the younger ninja didn't stand a chance.

"Fish are coming," he replied instead, pointing a gloved hand towards the river. Shooting his slightly sulking companion a lazy smile, Kakashi lay down contentedly on the comfortable grass of the bank. This mission was shaping up to be quite the send-off.

* * *

As much as she liked to grouse about it Sakura didn't truly mind cooking for the rest of her team. Her fairly consistent refusal to actually stemmed from Hinata of all people, who'd spoken fairly snappishly once when Kurenai had had a stand-in team leader who thought kunoichi were largely only good for scouting, sex and stews. Kiba and Shino probably hadn't helped matters with their surprising lack of confrontational spirit, and Hinata had returned to Konoha looking surprisingly frazzled and with a lot to say about fair treatment for the kunoichi that resided in the village.

So it was with her shy friend's words ringing in her ears - _it's all about taking_ _ **turns**_ _, Sakura-chan -_ the medic set about marinating and spearing the fish Kakashi and Naruto had caught earlier into a tempting row above the cracking fire. They'd pulled the caravans into a triangle around the firepit and Tenzou had obligingly drawn comfortable stumps out of the ground; the whole campsite reminding Sakura more of a jolly family outing than a group of the world's most dangerous ninja on the hunt. She supposed that was the point: but anyone looking closer at their current motley troupe could barely mistake them for anything less than mercenaries, civilian clothes and all.

Settling back on her heels to let the fish cook, Sakura flicked her eyes towards her designated stump and contemplated it for a few moments, chin in hand.

"Tenzou-san," she called out eventually, disturbing the man from his game of Go with Naruto.

"Yeah?" He answered evenly. "Need more firewood?"

"Mm, not yet," she replied, green eyes giving the merry fire an assessing look. "It's about my chair, actually…"

Kakashi immediately glanced up from his book, a suspicious gleam in his eyes. "Sakura…" he said warningly, and she could hear him putting just a touch of his 'my word is the law here' authority in his voice.

The medic simply fixed him with an innocent smile that was all teeth and no warmth before turning back to Tenzou expectantly. Who, unlike her, was watching their team leader in his usual obedient manner, game forgotten in front of him. Sakura huffed. While she and Naruto - and to a lesser extent Sai - liked to joke around and play with Kakashi's status as the head of their team, Tenzou never did. In a relationship borne from the long partnership in their ANBU days the younger man was almost unquestioningly obedient when it came to her former sensei, and it leached into their everyday interactions in a way that generally fascinated the analyst in her.

What had they been through together to forge such an unshakeable chain of command? She'd never been able to get Tsunade to show her Kakashi's ANBU records and when the man himself finally got around to taking up the mantle of Hokage she suspected the chance would be gone forever. The part of her that wasn't nosy didn't mind in the slightest, but the greater majority would undertake some serious bribing if it would shed light on why Tenzou currently felt the need to get permission from Kakashi before he answered her.

Kakashi sighed, no doubt worn down by all the eyes on him. "Oh, fine…" he muttered, waving a hand in a lazily authoritative manner that was so like Tsunade Sakura nearly chuckled out loud. As much as he hated to admit it Kakashi had the Hokage presence down to a T. And judging by the way his gaze sharpened on her at the hastily muffled chuckle, he knew exactly what she was laughing at, and he _really_ hated it.

Tenzou relaxed, permission apparently granted. "What can I do for you, Sakura-chan?"

"Could you please add a bit of a back to my seat? My back's a little worn out."

"Sure thing," he said easily, ambling over to her side of the fire. Through the flames she could see Naruto rolling his eyes as he started to pick up the abandoned Go pieces scattered in front of him, so she stuck out a cheeky tongue at her friend before throwing Tenzou a sweet smile.

"Just tell me when's good enough," the wood ninja continued, his arms already moving in the required forms to draw out his energy.

The next few moments were spent with Sakura directing and Tenzou shaping the wood of her rapidly-forming chair when they were once again interrupted by Kakashi.

"Are you making Tenzou make you a throne, Sakura-chan? Surely that's enough." He pointed to the high back she'd coaxed the brown hair ninja into drawing out of the wood.

"You caught me," she replied unrepentantly, shooting Tenzou a grin. He just shook his head in a mockery of exasperation before finishing what did indeed look like a throne, releasing his chakra and moving back towards the other side of the fire, giving the fish a tentative poke on his way.

"You shouldn't look to waste a teammate's strength like that," Kakashi scolded lightly, putting his open book down across one knee.

"Tire out the man who single-handedly made most of our village? More like I'm encouraging a creative spirit." Dropping down into her now much more luxurious seat, Sakura stretched out languorously, popping her spine as she did so. "Sorry," she said, more sincerely. "My back really does hurt."

"Fix it then," Kakashi replied relentlessly, ignoring her pout.

"What's that about encouraging teammates to waste their energy?"

"Come on, Sakura, it's not like that would take you more than a snap of your fingers to do."

Mollified at this testament to her strength as well as the no-nonsense way in which he said her name, she settled back into the ornately styled chair, content to watch the flames licking at the darkness above their campsite. Her eyes were close to drifting shut when a sudden movement from the man to her right focused her attention again. Kakashi had sat up abruptly in his chair, two fingers hooked in the scarf he was currently draping in an imitation of his mask over his lower face. His shoulders were pitched back and the snapping shut of his book made the whole team freeze in place, ready.

Nobody spoke for the fraction of a second it took for him to blink, sniff, and let out a harsh breath. "We'll have a flash storm tonight," he supplied, sliding his eyes over the team but not relaxing. "Smells like a bad one."

Sakura let out the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. While they had all known it couldn't be an enemy presence he was sensing the way he'd went on high alert had raised her adrenaline levels to an uncomfortable height for this time of the evening. He really did sometimes display canine behaviours; but while Kiba had all the boisterousness of a puppy Kakashi's actions were that of a hunting dog, a working dog, an alpha. The thought skittered across Sakura's mind somewhat uncomfortably before she shrugged off the image of him displaying, ahem, alpha behaviours and asked, "what do you need us to do?"

Fire country flash storms were nothing to take lightly and that was only truer the further you moved from temperate Konoha; there'd be lighting and rain and wind on an almost dangerous scale.

Now that she'd been told about the storm, Sakura could see that Sasuke sensed it too: the young man had been sitting pensively on his stump all evening, but now his hair stood as though it was electrified and his attitude seemed more woe is me than usual, eliciting a grin from the medic despite their current non-speaking status.

Chakra natures were a fascinating thing, she thought briefly, before rushing to follow the instructions that were falling rapid-fire from Kakashi's mouth.

* * *

"I'm sorry!" Tenzou shouted about the rapidly rising winds. "I'm afraid I'm running a little low on chakra to finish this!"

Sakura felt a split second of guilt as she heard the wood user shout to Kakashi; that had been partially her fault with her chair stunt before dinner, but there wasn't time to dwell on it.

"Just do what you can, Tenzou!" Kakashi replied, the wind violently tearing the words from his mouth so they had to strain to hear him. "Sakura - tie this rope to yourself and see if you can fix the wheels a little further into the ground."

"Got it!"

"Sasuke - get the _horses._ And Naruto - put that fire out!"

It was shaping up to be a long, wet, miserable night, and as Sakura tied off the sturdy rope and braved the driving rain that was howling outside of their makeshift shelter, she knew she was going to end the night colder and wetter than anyone short of a Wave Country fisherman should humanly be.

* * *

Several hours later, Sakura sneezed herself awake, coming to her senses immediately with a grimace as her frozen muscles protested the sharp movement. Tenzou had tried his hardest to mould the wood of their caravans into a canopy over their heads - the wind was so strong that they'd had to move into the centre of the protective circle offered by the small vehicles rather than risk separating - and without ventilation as well as the fact they'd moved the horses under the roof it had become clear a fire was no longer an option. The freezing wind found little difficulty in plaguing them through the gaps in their hasty shelter, leaving a huddle of cold, sodden ninja curled up on a raised platform above the horses' heads.

At least there was no need to hold a watch: nobody in their right minds would venture out in a storm of this magnitude. On the other hand, the cramped space and nervousness of their transport meant Kakashi couldn't summon his ninken, a prime source of heat on many a night of forced darkness in enemy territory, so the mood of the group had gradually simmered into a dark sulk that ended in an uncharacteristically early night.

It was difficult to tell what time it was due to the chaos that still reigned outside, and though Sakura's body clock was as accurate as any ninja's she found herself wanting nothing more than to be slightly warmer, slightly drier and definitely less awake. Her earlier forced march into the storm to secure the wheels of the carts into earth that had been rapidly muddying had left her soaked from head to toe as well as covered in the muck blown back from her Earth Wall jutsu: a bit of revenge on Kakashi's part, she thought, for making Tenzou cater to her whims. Though the worst of the mud had been sloughed off in the unforgiving rain she hadn't been able to get dry in the rush to secure their shelter and calm the horses.

She heaved a sigh, thinking longingly of the dry clothes that were currently inaccessible in the main body of the caravans. Though Tenzou had done a brave job his quick woodworking had essentially blocked off most of their gear in his haste to make their clearing rainproof, and if she wanted access it was either smash her way through the wood (unacceptable in such close quarters) or coax him awake and see whether his chakra had replenished enough to help.

Neither option was possible - and a brief glance to her left showed that neither was cuddling into Naruto, her third favourite option for cold nights on a mission after the warmth of a fire or the cosy nest of Kakashi's dogs. The jinchuuriki was a permanent source of heat due to the bubbling of the nine tails' chakra under his skin, heat which was currently being unfairly hoarded by the definite blackmail-worthy sight of Sasuke and Sai stuck like burrs to either side of their blonde teammate.

The medic was sorely tempted to shove Sasuke out of her way to get close to Team Kakashi's personal furnace but to her tired mind that was far too much effort, and would likely end in an awkward tangle of limbs with the Uchiha come morning, something she'd very much like to avoid at the present time.

No, right now she needed a heat source that was less fraught with tension and didn't require moving, but it didn't seem forthcoming as the haze of sleep began to creep across her consciousness once more. Sighing again, Sakura let her head fall back to the hard wooden floor as she cursed the storm that was doing its best to rob her of a good night's sleep.

* * *

Someone had been conditioning his dogs' hair. There was no way any self respecting ninken would allow themselves to feel so silky soft, not even Bisuke, and although Kakashi was a hair's breadth away from the dreamless grip of deep sleep he knew that something wasn't quite right.

Pakkun. Had he summoned Pakkun? The subtle minty scent that currently filled his senses was awfully familiar to the shampoo he knew the pug indulged in, a fact that was trying to set off alarm bells in a mind that was still clawing itself back into the land of the thinking. He burrowed a little deeper into the mystery fur, gradually coming to realise that although it certainly felt soft and smelled nice it was actually rather uncomfortably damp and chilly.

He cracked open an eye curiously. Pink. Through the blur of sleep that dulled his vision the shinobi felt rather than saw the delicate shade that filled his vision, a colour that dimly reminded him of delicate petals and his favourite sweets from the teahouse back home. Huh. Did he have a pink ninken?

Come to think of it, did he have a _big_ pink ninken? While Kakashi wasn't averse to sharing his bed with his dogs he generally regretfully excluded Bull from the arrangement due to his massive size and tendency to pin Kakashi's legs to the bed as he slept. Something which wasn't currently happening because he himself, he gradually realised, was trapping the as-of-yet unidentified canine under one of his own legs, which also felt relatively soaked now that he was becoming aware of it.

The warning that had been clamouring in his subconscious was suddenly a lot clearer as the shape in his arms shifted and he realised that it didn't have fur, it had _hair,_ and it was soft in a far pleasanter way than a dog and it was in fact his very volatile, very human, and definitely very female teammate Sakura.

Shit.

Instincts honed from a lifetime on the battlefield stopped his body from stiffening in a way that would have woken her up and made the situation infinitely more dangerous than it already was. Unable to control the sudden hammering of his heartbeat Kakashi instead willed his body to hold the same relaxed position it had been in for presumably some time, taking stock of what could very well be his last few moments if he didn't put all his famed extraction skills into practice.

They were pressed together in a hold that would be intimate if they were wearing less, Sakura curled against his front with his arms around her and one leg haphazardly woven together with her own. One of her slender arms was pushed forward in a motion that indicated she'd moved backwards into him in her sleep seeking his body heat while the other rested on top of the arm he suddenly realised ended with a hand possessively splayed over her hip. With his face buried into her hair and the unoccupied arm cradling her neck and hovering dangerously close to her chest it was a position he'd found himself in with women before: but generally unaccompanied by clothing and certainly never with a subordinate, let alone not in a makeshift shelter in the middle of a high priority mission.

Compromising, definitely compromising, and even though he felt the same inner tension as with any high risk situation Kakashi spared a moment's amusement at Sakura's clear exposure to sleeping in a man's arms. Naruto and Sai liked to tease her prudishness but he knew nobody could sleep like this, exhausted and cold or not, unless they'd done it before and while his mind worked on a plan to remove himself without the removal of any limbs he idly wondered who'd managed to share her bed on what had to be a semi-regular basis. Perhaps that was the answer to her mystery fall out with Sasuke; but no - the jounin could make out the hazy form of the Uchiha on her other side, and instinct would surely have edged her towards him if they had a history of sleeping in each other's arms.

He was still contemplating how best to slide his arm from under her head when she shifted with the slow grace of deep sleep, his hand on her hip sliding from its already precarious position to skate further across her curves, coming to rest in the spot between her belly button and the waistband of her shorts. Now touching impossibly smooth skin, the ninja's fingers twitched in a purely instinctual flutter of fingers across the hard planes of her stomach and he felt his breathing hitch when she sighed in unconscious content.

He was so very dead, but while the team leader in him was coaching him on how he could move her without incident his currently much louder male side was coaxing him into simply enjoying the feel of a woman in his arms. He sighed into her pastel pink hair. As ways to die went it was far, _far_ pleasanter than how he thought he'd eventually meet his end, and if Sakura would do him the honour of killing him before Tsunade forced those robes over his head then, well, this relatively innocent pleasure was more than worth it.

Mind made up, he tightened his hold on the kunoichi with the practiced sneakiness of a light sleeper, drawing her small, lithe body closer to his in an attempt to impart some of his warmth into her chilled skin. Lulled into sleep once more, Kakashi took a deep breath of the minty shampoo that couldn't quite override her own more subtle scent, and slipped into dreams where she rolled over in his arms and pressed a cold nose into the warm hollow of his collarbone.

* * *

The next time he awoke - and he was vaguely surprised that he _had_ awoken - Kakashi's vision was no longer filled with delicate pink, although he needed only to tilt his eyes downward to see that the blush under his chin was in fact the now-dried hair of his bad tempered subordinate. Instead he found himself looking into twin pools of cornflower blue that looked terribly wide in the dull light of dawn, a sparkling set of sharp teeth accompanying the eyes in an expression that was part grin and part growl.

Ah. Naruto. Kakashi braced himself for the inevitable explosion as he took stock of the way Sakura was now leaning into his chest, her arms burrowed under his shirt as though possessively laying claim to his heat. Her face was pressed into the bare skin of his neck, her soft sleeping breaths shivering over his pulse in a way that felt so good he almost physically heard the doors slamming shut on his assessment of her as one of the 'strictly sexless' people of his acquaintance. Distracted from this realisation by his awareness that Naruto was possibly the only person more protective of Sakura than she was of herself, Kakashi schooled his expression into what he hoped was a convincing bemused mien.

" _Help?"_ He mouthed, unable to avoid inhaling a few strands of pink as he opened his mouth. The edge dropped away from Naruto's grin and it became teasing; the younger ninja moved with impressive silence across the floor, arms held out in a strange pincer grip that evaded Kakashi's tired guessing.

He maybe couldn't predict what was about to happen but it appeared Sakura's prankster senses were sharper, because the jinchuuriki had barely begun to descend upon her sleeping form before an arm suddenly snaked out from under Kakashi's shirt - causing him to gasp a little breathlessly - and fisted into the blonde's t-shirt with a deadly kind of accuracy.

"Don't." The single word was laced with such caution that Naruto froze on the spot, his helpful demeanour taking on Kakashi's own harrowed look as both ninja waited helplessly for whatever hell she was going to rain on them. Stuck together as they were Kakashi could almost feel the wheels of her mind turning, and he held himself unnaturally still as her breathing changed from asleep to angered to confused in just a few halting breaths. With her hand still firmly planted in the fabric of Naruto's shirt Kakashi felt the exact, torturous moment she opened her eyes, long eyelashes fluttering against his pulse point as she re-adjusted her world.

"What's going on?" She mumbled, warning tone lost in her confusion. Kakashi swallowed and felt rather than saw her eyes draw to the motion.

"I think," he began slowly, feeling her body copy his rigid posture at the utter close proximity of his voice. "Someone maybe got cold while they were asleep." He thought that was relatively smooth - blameless, yet at the same time protesting his innocence. Naruto's cautious thumbs up seemed to agree, but the older ninja still held his breath when the medic shifted on the arm under her and drew herself onto her elbow. Eyes a deep green with tiredness stared unflinchingly into his for a moment beyond what he'd potentially consider acceptable, and when she broke eye contact to slide her gaze down towards the hand that was still buried under her shirt (which was probably going to be listed as his cause of death) Kakashi resisted the urge to close his own in defeat. Even worse, a blush crept onto his face at the rather obvious effect her proximity was having on his early morning body.

"I see," was all she remarked, before pulling back with the practiced ease of a medic prying themselves away from the grasp of a needy patient.

Kakashi didn't know if it was a blessing or a curse that she didn't look back once as she exited the hollow wooden confines of their shelter, but he wasn't going to bite the hand that fed (or in this case, had rested carelessly between his shoulder blades).

* * *

Sakura managed ten steps away from the caravans before she had to turn back and lean against the nearest wall. Sliding her hands over her cheeks to rest cool fingers at her temples, the kunoichi let the blush that had been threatening blaze its way shamelessly across her face while her mouth hung open in an embarrassed _O_ shape.

Okay. So she'd woken up tangled like a lover in Kakashi's arms. That wasn't too bad, was it? They'd been paired up continuously for months in missions that sometimes saw them share an inn room, but never before had they shared a bed without the comforting huddle of at least two of his ever-present dogs. And never before had she opened her eyes to be confronted with the sight of his pulse beating anxiously over the muscles of his shoulder and neck, a neglected area of admiration on their fellow shinobi that she and Ino had spent many a night appraising. Never mind that he'd somehow managed to _absorb_ the clean smell of the storm and that his hands seemed to be incredibly warm on her skin and that - she stopped her train of thought with an exertion of the will that had made her Tsunade's second apprentice.

It would only be awkward if she made it so and that wasn't something she could afford right now, mission or not. Kakashi made a fantastic unwitting ally in her efforts to avoid the inevitable follow up discussion with Sasuke and if the atmosphere between them became strained she'd be forced to confront her other mysterious teammate before she was ready, as well as completely lose her nerve when it came to dancing in front of the team. They were scheduled to reach the next border town by evening and if she made a scene now it'd not only throw off their timing but negatively affect their team work and ability to maintain their cover.

Decision made, Sakura carefully schooled her expression into something more reminiscent of her usual early morning temperament before striding back into the makeshift room with an attitude just short of her habitual determination.

The fact that there would now probably be two pairs of dark eyes trying to burn a hole into her back on the journey only added to her silent prayers that Tsunade's secret hot springs lived up to their recommendation.


	4. Worshipper and Worshipped

"You know, I actually used to _laugh_ at how you all did everything Sakura-chan asked," Tenzou remarked with uncharacteristic sullenness. Likely feeling useless after he'd had to spend the day huddled in a blanket and replenishing his chakra, the wood user was making up for it with overly enthusiastic participation in setting up a small stage at Kakashi's chosen location. The rest were busy handing out flyers in the town's market square with the exception of Sakura, who'd vanished into the cart she had claimed as her own with mysterious and unconvincing excuses that the 'main event' never showed themselves before the performance.

"Yeah?" Kakashi said, listening instead to the unmistakable slide of paper that indicated Sakura was catching up on her reading rather than helping out.

"I'm serious," his companion pressed. "I used to imagine what blackmail she had over the team - you in particular, because you really let her get away with everything - but I turned around one day and realised I'm just as bad as the rest of you." The ANBU thudded a long slat of wood into place and slid it forward with a satisfying _click_ , staring disapprovingly at it as though the plank was in on the conspiracy to make him bend to their teammate's whims.

"Was that before or after she convinced you to make her a throne?" Kakashi asked, adding a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Oh, don't, senpai." Tenzou looked pained. "Chakra exhaustion on an A-rank mission in a non combat situation?" He held a hand to his head, brown hair sticking up through his fingers. "I'll buy your beers for a month if you leave that out of the mission report."

"Mah…" Kakashi pretended to consider, straightening up from where he'd been securing the stage to the ground. "It's a good offer." He shrugged. "Shame I'm not going to be writing the report." Saluting with two fingers to his temple and a wink at Tenzou's obvious consternation, the copy ninja trotted over to where they'd set up camp, hearing the small scramble from within her cart as Sakura went about hiding the evidence of her relaxation at his approach.

He paused outside the wooden door, struggling against his desire to take a deep breath as he knew she'd hear it. Their normal friendship dictated that before entering he'd make some kind of enquiry as to her decency while she countered with a comment on her continuous lack of it, but that was before she'd gone and _breathed_ on him and before he'd mostly accidentally had a handful of her curves. What to do? They'd been acting normal all day but this was slightly different and he'd already been lingering outside for too long -

"I know there's no window, Kakashi... but you know you can come in via the door as well, right?" Sakura's voice drifted from within, speaking in the sing-song way she liked to adopt when teasing.

This time not bothering to hold back his relieved sigh, he placed a hand on the sturdy door and began to pull it open, replying in the same amused tone, "but are you decent, Sakura-chan?"

She snorted. "No." And then when his hand suddenly paused in its progress, she burst into peals of laughter that had him rolling his eyes and grinning under his scarf as he opened the offending door fully and stepped up into the narrow cabin.

Inside, his nose was immediately assaulted with the sting of drying herbs and the heavy scent of a stewing medicine, and through the watering of his eyes Kakashi saw she'd transformed the space into part triage and part herbal den. Every available surface was loaded with a hefty stack of cut-and-dried medicinal plants, in such volumes that meant she had to have been gathering them quite voraciously over the past few days. Amidst it all were mysterious bundles of cloth and even the glittering scarf that she'd bought in the Fukuro market when they'd set off, lending the small space a heady atmosphere that had him sitting on his heels to avoid the worst of the sensory overload.

"No wonder you didn't want anyone to share with you," he remarked, taking in all the paraphernalia that marked her as a medical ninja cluttered together with gear he assumed had to do with her role in the troupe. "Sure you're not going for the fortune teller aesthetic?"

Peering around exaggeratedly, Kakashi made sure to give her a lazy wink as she met his gaze, "where do you even sleep?"

"Oh, shut up," she replied without any real acidity in her tone. "This part of Fire Country is really good for stocking up supplies at this time of year, so I figured I'd make myself useful if I'm not in the hospital and replenish our stores of some of the rarer plants."

The shinobi nodded, understanding. As much as Sakura liked to complain about spending too much time in the medical bays he knew her thoughts were never far from her patients; it was very much like her to spend her time as a 'civilian' working as much as she could to assist the village's sprawling health service. Again he was assaulted with a vague sense of guilt at depriving the organisation of one of its core members so often over the last year, but he reminded himself that it was highly likely this mission had been given to Sakura as a holiday as much as it had been to him. Kakashi was under no illusions that Tsunade would stick around as a constant presence in Konoha after her retirement from the Hokage position, at least at first. The slug princess had been loudly hinting about a tour round the casinos of the continent with her retirement stipend in hand, and her absence would leave Sakura with even more responsibility than she currently had.

If he hadn't been too busy feeling sorry about his own impending doom Kakashi was certain he'd be feeling sorry for his medic on account of hers.

"Can I help?" He offered instead, thinking of ways the team could lighten her load. "Pakkun and the others are made for this sort of thing, after all."

Sakura turned away from where she had been rifling through a box of what looked like junk. Where had she even had time to gather so much stuff?

"Oh, would you, Kakashi?" She smiled broadly, showing off pearly teeth. "That would be really appreciated."

"Sure," he shrugged, smiling back almost as widely, though it was hidden beneath the scarf that was currently protecting his olfactory senses. "I'll summon them outside though, as I'm not sure they'd be able to cope with…" he trailed off, waving an arm vaguely at the drying plants hanging from the ceiling.

"Of course!" She gave him an even bigger smile, not bothering to hide how much his offer of help had obviously brightened her mood. "I can separate the plants into groups according to their scent classifiers and give them a little time to reach full potency - to make it easier." Sakura had worked with his ninken often enough to know how to make their jobs as trackers as uncomplicated as possible; he didn't think there was anyone else outside the Inuzuka clan who understood the importance of emphasising a single strain of scent particles to follow. If he had to guess it was similar to how she crafted poisons and their antidotes, but he still thanked the gods that Team Kakashi's skills aligned in such a complementary way.

Muttering under her breath about whether Bisuke or Akino would be better at tracking water-based botanicals, Sakura shifted away from the box of junk to begin absent-mindedly sorting through the piles of leaves and stems on her desk: clearly intent on starting right away while his offer was still fresh on the table.

Her movement caused a small black book to fall with a heavy thud to the floor of their caravan. Guessing that it had been the offending piece of relaxation while he and Tenzou had been working, Kakashi made to pick it up in curiosity when it was swept out of his reach by a suddenly attentive Sakura.

"Hmm, I hope the spine wasn't damaged," she muttered, looking far too intently at the cover, which immediately drew his attention to the rather dull, dusty tome in her hands. It looked in about the same condition as all Sakura's books; surviving within an inch of their spine.

"What's this?!" The Copy Ninja drawled, affecting a tone of mock surprise. "The Great Defiler Sakura suddenly cares about the wellbeing of her books?"

They'd had many arguments over the years about the correct treatment of literature - Sakura was of the opinion that books were to be scribbled upon and thoroughly _enjoyed,_ whereas Kakashi proclaimed that they should be kept pristine, resulting in Sakura huffily agreeing that she'd rather the kind of books _he_ read _did_ stay in untouched condition - and soon the pair fell into lighthearted bickering over the merits of using a bookmark versus folding the pages.

It didn't escape his notice, however, that Sakura very carefully slid the book into a too-small pocket instead of waving it in his face like she usually did to prove the medium's sturdiness.

Blinking up at her through dark grey eyes he gracefully let her win the argument - though no way were any books of _his_ going around dogeared - while he angled his head to read what he could of the cover.

'... _the Body'_ was all he could make out and if it weren't for her secretiveness Kakashi would be content to think it was simply yet another medical textbook. But it it couldn't be, not with that caginess, and now he had another puzzle to occupy him en route to their mission: acquire one mysterious book from one misbehaving subordinate.

It was challenges like this he'd miss most.

* * *

"I'm just saying I don't think that's, you know, a normal observation to have, Sai," Naruto paused thoughtfully. "I mean actually, maybe it is _normal_ to notice, but it's definitely not normal the way you said it."

The blonde crossed his arms over his chest with a decisive nod, heedless of the flyers now crumpled into uselessness against his arm. While Sakura, Kakashi and Tenzou were in charge of getting the stage ready for the evening's performance Naruto, Sai and Sasuke had been tasked with handing out flyers and drumming up interest in the town square for the show: a job Naruto privately thought would be better suited to himself and Sakura, and Kakashi at a push.

But no. Sai had insisted on gauging the reaction to his artistic advertising and Sasuke had just stared at Kakashi until the older man had sighed in defeat, shooing them away.

So instead of a cheery group drawing in the crowds, Naruto found himself marooned against the town's drinking fountain in the square, with the locals responding to his friendly smiles and nods before sliding deliberate glances towards his accidentally threatening companions. Sasuke wouldn't make eye contact with anyone (a habit formed from the necessity of tempering the Sharingan) and Sai made _too much_ eye contact with everyone.

It wasn't going well.

"Even Sasuke probably agrees with me here, right?" Naruto continued, nudging his silent friend. "Right? It's definitely weird that Sai's trying to get my shirt off, no?"

"You are deliberately misinterpreting my suggestion, Naruto." Sai pushed off from his perch against the fountain, leaving behind a stack of flyers precariously perched against the stone lip. "I merely stated that you appear to be the preferred male archetype for the residents of this village, so it would help our task if you were to make yourself more… noticeable for them."

"Yeah, by _getting half naked_ ," Naruto huffed. "Can't you see why that's not an OK option?"

He drummed his heels a little into the dirt of the town's main thoroughfare, watching as a faint smirk spread across Sasuke's face, though he stayed silent for now.

"I really don't see the problem," Sai rebutted. "You are in prime shape, so there's nothing to be afraid of from a physical perspective. Except for the Seal… but I would be happy to paint other markings to make it less, I suppose, obvious."

Naruto perked up. "You mean like fake tattoos?" He shook his head. "Wait! That's not the issue here." Holding up a hand in front of his oblivious teammate, the blonde ninja racked his brain for a way of explaining. "OK. Think of it like this. Would you ask Sakura to do this - get half naked to attract more villagers for this evening's show?"

"I hate to inform you that you do not have breasts-"

"No I _know_ but it's the same kind of idea-"

"... not that Sakura-chan has _breast_ breasts, but-"

"Augh! Listen to me! It's not OK because it doesn't give us-"

Abruptly, Sasuke picked up the remaining pile of flyers, breaking up the pair's bickering. "Nobody wants to see dobe shirtless, Sai." He shoved a handful into the artist's hands. "The sooner we hand these out, the sooner we can get ready for tonight."

Naruto sighed, relieved. Sasuke was an unpredictable element in the team's banter: he could either be on your side or deliver the most cutting remarks depending on his current mood, though it seemed here he was opting for the path of least interference. It wasn't ideal (for Naruto's dignity) but at least he'd moved away from being deliberately cruel - that had been a difficult stage to coach through.

"Sasuke-san is right, Naruto." Sai brandished a finger at him as though he hadn't been the one delaying their objective by insisting his teammate get half-naked. "We should hurry back, and see if we can be of any use to the others."

Naruto grumbled, annoyed at being blamed for the very reasonable excuse of not wanting to flaunt his body any more than he had to. He'd had enough of that in his years cavorting with Jiraiya, thanks very much.

"You just want to see if you can sneak a peek at what Sakura-chan is going to do," he muttered. "Or, more like what she's going to wear."

Sai blinked slowly, his momentary confusion causing him to successfully pass out some flyers to the braver of the townspeople.

"I assure you I have no interest in what Sakura is wearing, or what she's going to do, beyond artistic considerations."

Naruto snorted, flashing a bright grin at some children and tossing them a crumpled flyer before turning back to his companions. Sasuke shook his head, fed up with their antics, and moved around the fountain to unsuccessfully engage with the townspeople on the other side.

"I know, that's the joke."

"What?"

"I mean, not being at least _a little_ curious at what your teammate is about to unleash upon you is weird."

"But... I am curious?" Sai tilted his head inquisitively.

"Uh huh... not in the right way, Sai." Naruto said, grinning as he tossed the last of his flyers towards a smiling group of youths their age.

They worked in silence for a time before Sai made a small sound of understanding.

"I see… you're referring to the high likelihood that Sakura-chan's performance is going to be sexualised in nature, based on her reluctance and embarrassment back in the teahouse." He nodded, satisfied in his deduction. "And are teasing me because I am not expressing the right amount of male interest in this?"

Naruto grinned even wider than before, slapping a hand off his knee in mirth.

"Bless the hokages!" He yelled. "Sai's grown up!"

* * *

Sakura sent a silent prayer of thanks for Sai's obsessive need to observe people; there was no way she'd have gotten useful information from the trio otherwise.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sai had returned from their flyering operation arguing about acceptable levels of nudity - she didn't even want to know - and when she beckoned them towards her cart Sai looked as though he was about to draw her into the conversation when a surprisingly tactful Naruto placed the whole of his hand directly over his pale teammate's mouth.

Of course, Sai bit him. Naruto squawked with rage and Sakura shared her first look with Sasuke that wasn't fraught with awkwardness since the mission began. There was just something about bickering teammates that promoted camaraderie above all other emotions; whatever the reason, she was just grateful that Sasuke's emerging social awareness was focused on the scene their companions were causing.

Eventually, the pair stilled and Sakura sighed heavily, clutching the neck of her changing robe closer to her chest. It was a hot, muggy evening, and she could feel the sweat gathering at the small of her back, so she was desperate not to delay the debriefing any longer and choose something to wear.

"Well?" She prompted.

"A wealthy town with a large proportion of middle aged or elderly residents, most of whom appear to be involved in the mercantile profession associated with crossroad settlements. There is no one particular deity revered but many of the shrines in the centre were decorated with sheaves of wheat local to the area. It is not a festival season at this current time, and I noticed that the general mood of the town was cautious in our presence." Sai reported to her mechanically, listing his observations about the area on his fingers.

Naruto looked askance at his companion and even Sasuke widened his eyes fractionally.

"All that," Naruto asked, "while you were cajoling me into taking my shirt off for the local girls?"

"If you were a halfway decent ninja," Sai replied, "you'd have noticed that there weren't that many local girls in the first place."

At this, both Sakura and Sasuke snickered, and she felt any irritation at being overly warm smooth away in the face of Naruto's narrowed eyes and suspicious look.

"I also noticed," Sasuke piped up, "that even when I moved away from Sai and Naruto the reactions of the people were conservative."

Naruto spun on his heel. "You, too?!"

Sakura frowned. "I _did_ ask you to tell me what you thought of the village when you went in, Naruto."

"Yeah, and I _noticed_ that I was being _tormented_ for someone's own amusement."

Sakura pushed back her hair from where it hung loose around her face, and offered her friend a conciliatory smile. "Well, it's okay, Naruto-kun." She only called him that when she was trying to get in his good books or trying to pull a fast one and he knew it, judging from the way he swung his gaze towards her. "I won't tell Hinata about you showing off for local ladies if you promise to help me out with my hair for this evening."

"What?!" Naruto threw up his hands even as his companions edged backwards. "I didn't even- wait, where are you going? Sai? Teme? It is definitely not my turnnnn…"

He trailed off with a glower even as Sakura extended a hand towards him that was half helping and half commanding. "Come on, get in."

The blonde ninja huffed in disgust at his abandonment, accepting her proffered hand and hauling himself after her into the enclosed space of her caravan. "Wow, I'm sure Kakashi-sensei is loving this," he remarked, sending a pointed look at the copious volumes of herbs littering the surfaces.

"Actually," Sakura replied as she placed heavy hands on his shoulders to seat him where she wanted him, "he offered to get the dogs to help gather more, which is better than the rest of you have been doing."

She started pulling combs and ornaments from one of the many boxes on the cart's floor.

"Well of course," Naruto said, rolling his eyes as though stating the obvious, "that's only because he's worried that if he's not nice to you, you'll stop going on missions with him, and probably more importantly that _you'll_ stop being nice to _him_."

Sakura frowned. She wasn't _nice_ to Kakashi, was she? No more so than any of the rest of the boys; that is, she was nice when they deserved, which wasn't often, and her regular moods drifted from friendly to frightening with any given comment. But never overtly _nice._

"That's a strange comment," she said instead of protesting.

Naruto scoffed, settling behind her as she sat down before picking up the largest comb to tackle the curled mess her hair had become. Some girls thrived in the field; Sakura's hair just lamented the heat of the cart and lukewarm water of a makeshift shower.

"So says the kunoichi who woke up with her hands up his shirt."

She flinched at the comment, even though there was nothing behind it but good-natured teasing. Naruto ignored the movement and picked up a comb before gingerly tugging at her pink locks. It was a ritual they'd begun back in the very earliest days of Team 7 when Sakura had been more interested in how her hair looked than how her kunai flew; one day her arms had been too tired and sore to move let alone brush her hair, and somehow (after lots of tears, though she'd never admit it) the night had ended with Kakashi half-heartedly pulling a comb through her hair to appease her. After that it had turned into one of the unspoken customs of the team's fieldwork: Sakura would occasionally ask one or another of the team to help with her hair and they did it, usually with only a minimum of complaint.

Over the years they'd all taken a turn, even Sasuke, and in the end the kunoichi had privately decided that grumble all they like, but her boys enjoyed the quiet moments spent in this way. Naruto had even become something of a hobbyist stylist and Tenzou could be convinced to weave wonders with braided flowers - Ino had remarked on a number of occasions that it simply wasn't fair that Sakura had a personal army of beautifiers until the kunoichi in question reminded her that Kakashi's dog-grooming attempts and Sasuke's methodical but misguided braids rarely made for the best looks.

Still, it felt good, and Sakura leant back slightly into her blonde companion, who seemed consumed with his task of smoothing out the tangles of the day from her tresses.

"I was just cold, you know," she remarked, eyes closed from the sensation of the comb moving through now-straight hair.

"I know," Naruto replied quietly, though she could hear the smirk in his voice. "I woke up just before you did, and I swear I've never seen Sensei look so at a loss."

"Oh, no…" Sakura resisted the urge to put her face in her hands. "Was he disgusted? Was it really weird? I've been trying to act normal all day, but…"

"I think he was more worried you'd wake up and bite him in the jugular, Sakura-chan." At her displeased huff, Naruto laughed into her hair and reached around her to pluck some pins from her hands. "How do you want this to look?"

She thought for a moment. "How did the girls in town look?"

"According to Sai there _weren't_ any girls!"

"So nothing fancy, then?"

"I guess not. I'll just twist it and stick like, a stalk of wheat out of the back or something."

Sakura frowned. "That doesn't sound unfancy."

"No, I'm sure I saw it in the square before, so it'll be fine..."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes while Naruto fussed over her hair and Sakura planned her routine for the evening's show. From the town's atmosphere it looked as though the more risque parts of her repertoire were solidly out of commission - not that she could complain - which left a host of sedate, harvest style dances that required gravity and proper frame of mind to dance properly. The wheat implied a reverence for surety and sustainability but with the aging population and wealth of the town it was perhaps best to lean towards gratitude for the bounty granted by the merchant trade. She deliberated for a few moments more before settling on a slow, reverent sequence that was danced as a thanks for the blessings bestowed upon people without singling out any one source; with the assessment she'd gotten of the town it was likely to go down well.

Not a showstopper, but an easy enough start for her heart when it came to exposing this part of her personality to the people who knew her best.

* * *

Kakashi felt a glimmer of worry as he looked over the restive crowd in front of their small stage. They'd been bravely moving through the motions for close to an hour now and while Naruto's enthusiastic tumbling ticked all the boxes it was apparently only making the middle-aged crowd simmer in envy. To make it worse Tenzou's tricks with flowers had been met with polite applause, while there weren't any children for Sai to paint, leaving him rather aimlessly holding a brush and circling the crowd like an accidental vulture. And the less said about Sasuke's scowling presence on the other side of the stage, the better.

Perhaps Sakura hadn't been wrong about flower arranging after all. Plucking aimlessly at the strings of his beaten-up _biwa,_ the jounin had to admit that this had been pretty much a roaring failure from the moment they'd misjudged the townspeople. Far from getting a free meal and maybe even a place to stay for the night, it looked as though they were close to being run out of town for either their terrible performance, their clear difference from the makeup of the locals, or for the simple fact that they'd tried to bring levity to what was obviously a conservative sort of place. Kakashi just hoped that Sakura wasn't going to seal the deal by flaunting what she had and the locals so obviously had not.

For the last half hour or so she'd been mostly motionless in the small waiting area behind the curtain; from where he was perched on a brightly coloured box he couldn't quite see what she was up to, but at least she looked to be fully dressed. The only clue to her actions was the gently undulating waves of chakra pouring from her to dissipate just above her clothes. And as she was as much a master of control as Kakashi himself was - maybe more - he had to assume it was deliberate.

Finally, Naruto ran out of steam, coming to a rolling stop with a smile that managed to ignore the crowd's mood and embrace it at the same time. To the sounds of yet more polite but disinterested applause, Kakashi felt rather than saw Sakura stand up behind the curtain even as Naruto bowed his way back. Too late, he realised they hadn't discussed how to introduce her and the shinobi swallowed in momentary indecision.

It didn't matter.

Because as soon as she stepped through into the bright lanterns of the stage, Kakashi could have stood up, screamed, even summoned a chidori and the residents of this conservative little backwater still wouldn't have taken their eyes off of his teammate. She was already swaying even as she advanced to the front of the space, moving with a precise slowness that spoke of the perfect control she was proud of. Dressed in the kimono she'd carried from Konoha - which managed to be at once plain and magnificent, a sombre dark green affair with hidden flashes of startling gold - Sakura had painted a bold golden stripe over her eyes, the luxurious colour a contrast to the green of her irises that gave them impossible depths, two pinpricks of nature shining from within a canvas of wealth.

She looked like a goddess long-forgotten, and the audience watched enraptured as she swung an elaborately tied bundle of wheat in wide, meaningful arcs. It wasn't a dance at all: it was a ceremony, and as Kakashi dragged his eyes from her reverently sweeping form over the stunned faces of the crowd he couldn't be sure any longer who was being worshipped and who was the supplicant.

She'd opted to appeal to both their humble farming beginnings while celebrating their obvious wealth and it was clear they loved, adored, _worshipped_ her over it. Belatedly Kakashi realised he'd trailed off playing the little lute in his hands at her entrance, but he didn't think he'd be able to start playing again even if he wanted to.

Feeling as detached as though under the strongest of genjutsu, Kakashi watched along with the rest of the crowd while his teammate spun and twirled with graceful clarity. If pressed, he couldn't have estimated how long he sat before he realised Sakura was turning to face him, still moving with devastating slowness.

And then she winked. Such a small movement, it pinned him as effectively as though she'd run him through. With a secretive smile on her lips she turned away from him again, the movement so smooth that for a second he just sat there unmoving, feeling a strange whooshing sound rush past his ears before - embarrassingly - the pale skin of his cheeks burned red.

Kakashi blinked, the spell broken, and swallowed a suddenly dry throat. He was utterly, devastatingly _fucked._

But watching her dance... it was hard to care.

* * *

AN: Good grief, I'm back! I'm sorry this took so long to post. It's been simmering for a while. Let me know what you think!


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